TSPDT - The 1,000 Greatest Films: The Top 500 Films (351-400)

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The 1,000 Greatest Films The Top 500 (351-400)

• 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

351

352

353

Charulata

SATYAJIT RAY (339)

• The Lonely Wife (English title)

1964 | 124m | BW | India | Psychological Drama, Romantic Drama

Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee, Shyamal Ghoshal, Gitali Roy, Bholanath Koyal, Suku Mukherjee, Dilip Bose, Joydeb, Bankim Ghosh

"Charulata , one of Ray's undoubted masterpieces... Charulata, the sensitive but bored wife of a westernized newspaper publisher finds herself drawn sexually to her husband's young cousin who comes to stay and shares her taste for literature. The film moves with beautiful precision from flirtation and almost childish competitiveness to near tragedy amid a lovingly reconstructed period setting." - Roy Armes, Film Reference

Selected by Philip Kemp, Digvijay Singh, Santosh Sivan, Terrence Rafferty, John Gillett.

264 → 275 → 318 → 324 → 319 → 339 → 351

Amazon Senses of Cinema Slant Magazine

A City of Sadness

HOU Hsiao-hsien (349)

• Beiqing chengshi (original title)

1989 | 158m | Col | Taiwan | Family Drama, War Drama

Wou Yi Fang, Nakamura Ikuyo, Jack Kao, Tony Leung, Tianlu Li, Shufen Xin

"Structurally and stylistically, City of Sadness is Hou's most audacious and uncompromising film up to that date, the first complete elaboration of the stylistics that dominate his subsequent work. One can define his style partly by reference to two great Japanese masters who may or may not be direct influences. Like Ozu, he prefers a static camera, but, like Mizoguchi, long takes." - Robin Wood, Film Reference

Selected by Jean-Michel Frodon, Chris Berry, Clara Law, Park Kiyong, Kim Ji-Seok.

265 → 279 → 308 → 305 → 329 → 349 → 352

Amazon Strictly Film School Chicago Reader

The Cloud-Capped Star

RITWIK GHATAK (341)

• Meghe Dhaka Tara (original title)

1960 | 126m | BW | India | Drama

Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Niranjan Ray, Gita Ghatak, Bijon Bhattacharya, Gita De, Dwiju Bhawal, Gyanesh Mukherjee, Ranen Ray Choudhury

"For Western viewers it's perhaps most easily approached as a bitter critique of harsh social and economic conditions... More interesting cinematically, however, is Ghatak's inventive, not quite naturalistic treatment of the story: in order to underline or undercut certain elements in terms of narrative, theme and characterisation, the performances, images, music and, most especially, sound are given almost expressionist nuances." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out

Selected by Shoma A. Chatterji, Dina Iordanova, John Powers, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Noel Vera.

405 → 421 → 379 → 400 → 416 → 341 → 353

Amazon Strictly Film School Film Reference

354↑

355

356

Groundhog Day

HAROLD RAMIS (368)

1993 | 103m | Col | USA | Fantasy Comedy, Romantic Comedy

Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky, Brian Doyle-Murray, Marita Geraghty, Angela Paton, Rick Ducommun, Rick Overton, Robin Duke

"The most horrible thing about life is not knowing what's going to happen next. Or at least that's what we have thought up till now. But Groundhog Day, Harold Ramis's brilliantly imaginative, wildly funny new comedy starring Bill Murray, demonstrates that there is something even more horrible -- knowing exactly what's going to happen next." - Hal Hinson, Washington Post, 1993

Selected by Michel Gondry, Jack Lechner, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Andrew Horbal, Barbara Schweizerhof.

502 → 406 → 376 → 386 → 365 → 368 → 354

Amazon Metacritic The A.V. Club

Shadow of a Doubt

ALFRED HITCHCOCK (342)

1943 | 108m | BW | USA | Thriller, Psychological Thriller

Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Hume Cronyn, Wallace Ford, Edna May Wonacott, Irving Bacon, Charles Bates

"Alfred Hitchcock's first indisputable masterpiece... Hitchcock's discovery of darkness within the heart of small-town America remains one of his most harrowing films, a peek behind the facade of security that reveals loneliness, despair, and death." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by James Mangold, Justine Elias, Les Bernstien, Zoran Sinobad, Raymond Bellour.

263 → 283 → 310 → 330 → 337 → 342 → 355

Amazon Filmsite Images Journal

See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films

All Quiet on the Western Front

LEWIS MILESTONE (335)

1930 | 105m | BW | USA | War Drama, Anti-War Film

Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Slim Summerville, Russell Gleason, Ben Alexander, William Bakewell, Scott Kolk, Walter Rogers, Owen Davis Jr.

"Lewis Milestone's powerful 1930 adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's antiwar novel, starring Lew Ayres and Louis Wolheim, deserves its reputation as a classic... Milestone's other 30s work (e.g., Hallelujah, I'm a Bum) is sorely in need of reappraisal." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Selected by Ronald Neame, Fred Zinnemann, Barthelemy Amengual, Alexander Korda, Carol Reed.

297 → 303 → 274 → 296 → 321 → 335 → 356

Amazon Film Reference Filmsite

357↑

358

359

The Silence of the Lambs

JONATHAN DEMME (384)

1991 | 118m | Col | USA | Psychological Thriller, Police Detective Film

Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald, Diane Baker, Brooke Smith, Kasi Lemmons, Tracey Walter, Roger Corman

"Caged Heat, Demme’s first directing effort for Corman, is a woman-in-prison flick that suggests that early on he was aware of the connection between genre bends and gender twists—the connection that is stunningly realized in The Silence of the Lambs. As exhilarating as it is harrowing, The Silence of the Lambs is a slasher film in which the woman is hero rather than victim, pursuer rather than pursued." - Amy Taubin, The Criterion Collection, 1998

Selected by M. Night Shyamalan, Davina Belling, Tobias Kniebe, Frank Schnelle, Judith Halberstam.

592 → 607 → 397 → 378 → 375 → 384 → 357

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies Time Out (Geoff Andrew)

Eyes Without a Face

GEORGES FRANJU (352)

• Les Yeux sans visage (original title)

1959 | 88m | BW | France-Italy | Horror, Gothic Film

Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Edith Scob, Francois Guerin, Juliette Mayniel, Beatrice Altariba, Alexandre Rignault, Rene Genin, Claude Brasseur, Michel Etcheverry

"Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face is a masterpiece of poetic horror and tactful, tactile brutality... Like Jean Cocteau's Orpheus, Eyes Without a Face is enriched by free-floating allusions to then-recent European history. It takes no stretch of the imagination to hear the hounds of "night and fog" or see the coldly psychopathic Génessier as a Nazi scientist." - J. Hoberman, The Village Voice, 2003

Selected by Mark Kermode, Brian Frye, Tom Milne, Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues, Noel Purdon.

291 → 308 → 352 → 354 → 348 → 352 → 358

Amazon The Criterion Collection Strictly Film School

Amadeus

MILOS FORMAN (343)

1984 | 158m | Col | USA | Biography, Period Film

F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Simon Callow, Roy Dotrice, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones, Charles Kay, Kenny (2) Baker, Lisabeth Bartlett

"Amadeus is constructed in wonderfully well-written and acted scenes -- scenes so carefully constructed, unfolding with such delight, that they play as perfect compositions of words. Most of them will be unfamiliar to those who have seen Peter Shaffer's brooding play, on which this film is based; Shaffer and Forman have brought light, life, and laughter to the material, and it plays with grace and ease." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1984

Selected by Kevin Feige, Suzi Feay, Zhou Xiaowen, Gary Sinyor, Gerard Corbiau.

320 → 355 → 350 → 341 → 323 → 343 → 359

Amazon Metacritic Reel Views

360

361

362↑

Memories of Underdevelopment

TOMÁS GUTIÉRREZ ALEA (353)

• Memorias del subdesarrollo (original title)

1968 | 97m | BW | Cuba | Psychological Drama, Political Drama

Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados, Eslinda Nunez, Omar Valdes, Rene de la Cruz, Yolanda Farr, Ofelia Gonzalez, Jose Gil Abad, Daniel Jordan, Luis Lopez

"Of all the dozens of films produced in Cuba through Castro's insistence on the importance of the cinema, Memories of Underdevelopment is the most sophisticated. So much so, in fact, that those opposed to the revolution tend to call it a magnificent and unrepeatable fluke, produced as it was by a film institute that was virtually a Marxist ministry. Those in favour cherish it as a landmark that avoids almost all of the radical cliches." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 2000

Selected by Gary Crowdus, Claudio Espana, Gael Garcia Bernal, B. Ruby Rich, Ashish Rajadhyaksha.

325 → 326 → 375 → 376 → 358 → 353 → 360

Amazon Slant Magazine Time Out

October

SERGEI EISENSTEIN (345)

• Oktyabr (original title)

1927 | 103m | BW | USSR | Historical Film, Propaganda Film

Vasili Nikandrov, Vladimir Popov, Boris Livanov, Layaschenko, Chibisov, Mikholyev, N. Podvoisky, Smelsky, Eduard Tisse

"Sergei Eisenstein was given a free hand and a mammoth budget to re-create the October Revolution for its tenth anniversary, but the results displeased the authorities--for reasons both political and aesthetic. Much of the montage plays better in analytical retrospect than it does on the screen, but much of the film is genuinely stirring--when he wasn't theorizing, the man really could cut film." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by Fernando Martin Pena, Jytte Jensen, Fernando Solanas, Verina Glaessner, Agustin L. Sotto.

276 → 278 → 307 → 292 → 332 → 345 → 361

Amazon Films de France Time Out

Distant Voices, Still Lives

TERENCE DAVIES (508)

1988 | 85m | Col | UK | Family Drama, Biography

Freda Dowie, Pete Postlethwaite, Angela Walsh, Lorraine Ashbourne, Dean William, Sally Davies, Nathan Walsh, Susan Flanagan, Michael Starke, Vincent MaGuire

"Few British film-makers have dared to attempt such a thoroughly poetic treatment of their native land, and Terence Davies is the only one to have succeeded so spectacularly... his 1988 debut feature is not only a disinterring of what is arguably the high point of postwar British art cinema, but is also testament to what we have lost, cinematically speaking, in the intervening period... what really sets his film apart is the stunning power of the images Davies conjures up. Long, stately shots combine with impassioned performances to create a visual tour de force unmatched elsewhere in British cinema... this film is a masterpiece." - Andrew Pulver, The Guardian, 2007

Selected by Mark Cousins, Tom Tykwer, Jane Bartlett, Robert Ryder, Helmut W. Banz.

477 → 471 → 420 → 456 → 507 → 508 → 362

Amazon BFI Screen Online Slant Magazine

363

364↑

365

The Sacrifice

ANDREI TARKOVSKY (346)

• Offret (original title)

1986 | 145m | Col | France-Sweden | Psychological Drama, Religious Drama

Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Valerie Mairesse, Allan Edwall, Guorun Gisladottir, Sven Wollter, Filippa Franzen, Tommy Kjellqvist, Per Kallman, Tommy Nordahl

"It is brilliant and audacious, with one of the most extraordinary final sequences in modern cinema, and all in a manner which Hollywood in the succeeding decade would learn to call "high concept". But it is more complex and ambiguous than it appeared at the time: its tragic meaning has darkened and clotted with time. " - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 2007

Selected by Julio Medem, Gore Verbinski, Clara Law, Pedro Crespo, Paul Cox.

373 → 379 → 366 → 388 → 412 → 346 → 363

Amazon Senses of Cinema Screening the Past

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

DON SIEGEL (373)

1956 | 80m | BW | USA | Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Film

Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, Virginia Christine, Jean Willes, Ralph Dumke, Tom Fadden, Kenneth Patterson

"Shot in just 19 days, Siegel's economical adaptation of a Jack Finney story (script by Daniel Mainwaring of Out of the Past fame) is one of the most resonant sci-fi movies, and one of the simplest. It has been interpreted as an allegory against McCarthyism, though it could equally stand as anti-Communist. It's still a chilling picture, gaining over Phil Kaufman's smart remake by virtue of its intimate small town setting, and it has one of the greatest endings ever filmed." - Tom Charity, Time Out

Selected by David Pirie, John A. Russo, Dinko Tucakovic, Tobe Hooper, Richard Corliss.

426 → 422 → 446 → 408 → 410 → 373 → 364

Amazon Filmsite Wikipedia

The Awful Truth

LEO MCCAREY (347)

1937 | 92m | BW | USA | Romantic Comedy, Screwball Comedy

Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Ralph Bellamy, Alex D'Arcy, Cecil Cunningham, Molly Lamont, Esther Dale, Joyce Compton, Robert Allen, Robert Warwick

"Zappy, sophisticated screwball comedy with Grant and Dunne displaying perfect timing as the husband and wife who get divorced and then, after enjoying quick flings with a cabaret artiste and an oil tycoon respectively, decide to get together again. A routine story perhaps, but McCarey transforms it , through his customary affection for his characters and taut pacing, into delightfully effective entertainment." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out

Selected by Molly Haskell, Adrian Martin, Michael Caton-Jones, Tom Ryan, Kent Jones.

239 → 236 → 264 → 297 → 322 → 347 → 365

Amazon Pop Matters Bright Lights Film Journal

366

367

368

Breaking the Waves

LARS VON TRIER (327)

1996 | 156m | Col | Denmark-Sweden-France-Netherlands-Norway | Psychological Drama, Romantic Drama

Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard, Katrin Cartlidge, Jean-Marc Barr, Adrian Rawlins, Jonathan Hackett, Sandra Voe, Udo Kier, Mikkel Gaup, Roef Ragas

"Courting and sometimes winning ridicule, daring to fuse true love with lurid exploitation and pure religious faith, the Danish director Lars von Trier has created a fierce, wrenchingly passionate film about the struggles of a shy young woman who is goodness personified. Truly, bells ring in heaven for a heroine like this." - Janet Maslin, The New York Times, 1996

Selected by Andrey Plakhov, Tom Tykwer, Julio Medem, Claudio Espana, Michaela Boland.

348 → 377 → 335 → 383 → 382 → 327 → 366

Amazon Rolling Stone Film Reference

Closely Watched Trains

JIRÍ MENZEL (358)

• Ostre sledované vlaky (original title); Closely Observed Trains (UK title)

1966 | 89m | BW | Czechoslovakia | Comedy Drama, War Drama

Vaclav Neckar, Jitka Bendova, Vladimir Valenta, Josef Somr, Vlastimil Brodsky, Jiri Menzel, Libuse Havelkova, Alois Vachek, Jitka Zelenohorska, Ferdinand Kruta

"An apt alternative title for the movie might be Closely Packed Frames; despite its relatively short running time, and despite the fact that it rarely strays beyond a sleepy, small-town railway station, it is rich in character and comic incident." - Richard Schickel, The Criterion Collection, 2001

Selected by Ken Loach, Arnost Lustig, Steve Grant, Oleg Kovalov, Hanif Kureishi.

372 → 358 → 377 → 351 → 356 → 358→ 367

Amazon Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times) Time Out (Tom Milne)

Cat People

JACQUES TOURNEUR (361)

1942 | 73m | BW | USA | Supernatural Thriller, Romantic Mystery

Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph, Jack Holt, Elizabeth Russell, Alan Napier, Elizabeth Dunne, Henrietta Burnside, Alec Craig

"First in the wondrous series of B movies in which Val Lewton elaborated his principle of horrors imagined rather than seen, with a superbly judged performance from Simon as the young wife ambivalently haunted by sexual frigidity and by a fear that she is metamorphosing into a panther. With its chilling set pieces directed to perfection by Tourneur, it knocks Paul Schrader's remake for six." - Tom Milne, Time Out

Selected by Jacques Lourcelles, Gertrud Koch, Ricardo Bedoya, Hassan Hosseini, Italo Manzi.

440 → 464 → 499 → 471 → 423 → 361 → 368

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies Filmsite

369

370

371

Ben-Hur

WILLIAM WYLER (359)

1959 | 212m | Col | USA | Religious Epic, Sword-and-Sandal

Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Sam Jaffe, Finlay Currie, Cathy O'Donnell, Frank Thring

"Although a bit like a four-hour Sunday school lesson, Ben-Hur is not without its compensations, above all, of course, the chariot race (which was directed not by Wyler but by Andrew Marton, and it shows). The rest is made interesting by the most sexually ambivalent characters sporting togas this side of Satyricon." - Scott Meek, Time Out

Selected by Camille Paglia, Adrian Turner, Cherd Songsri, Clive Barker, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

353 → 343 → 334 → 321 → 331 → 359 → 369

Amazon Filmsite Time

The Manchurian Candidate

JOHN FRANKENHEIMER (367)

1962 | 126m | BW | USA | Political Thriller, Paranoid Thriller

Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish, John McGiver, Khigh Dhiegh, James Edwards

"One of the strangest and most mercurial movies ever made in Hollywood. A veritable salad of mixed genres and emotional textures, this exciting black-and-white cold war thriller runs more than two hours and never flags for an instant... It's conceivably the only commercial American film that deserves to be linked with the French New Wave, full of visual and verbal wit that recalls Orson Welles." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Selected by Martin Campbell, Stan Russo, Frank Arnold, Robert Horton, Edward Copeland.

0 → 299 → 294 → 329 → 364 → 367 → 370

Amazon The A.V. Club Metacritic

The Big Heat

FRITZ LANG (362)

1953 | 90m | BW | USA | Crime, Film Noir

Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin, Carolyn Jones, Jeanette Nolan, Peter Whitney, Willis Bouchey, Robert Burton

"Fritz Lang's sizzling 1953 film noir masterpiece features Glenn Ford (in his best performance—perhaps his only performance) as an anguished cop out to smash a maddeningly effete mobster (Alexander Scourby) and break the hold he has on a corrupt city administration. With sensational support from Lee Marvin as a sadistic hood and Gloria Grahame as Marvin's bad/good girlfriend, whose reward for hanging around is a faceful of scalding coffee. Brutal, atmospheric, and exciting—highly recommended. " - Don Druker, Chicago Reader

Selected by Barbet Schroeder, James Naremore, Jose Luis Borau, Jesus Angulo, Jose Luis Rebordinos.

404 → 453 → 427 → 379 → 403 → 362 → 371

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies Images

See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films

372

373↑

374

Back to the Future

ROBERT ZEMECKIS (364)

1985 | 116m | Col | USA | Science Fiction, Sci-Fi Comedy

Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F. Wilson, Claudia Wells, Marc McClure, Wendie Jo Sperber, George DiCenzo, James Tolkan

"The people in Robert Zemeckis's films have the great fun of living out their craziest daydreams. And the crazier the better... One of the most appealing things about Back to the Future is its way of putting nostalgia gently in perspective. Mr. Zemeckis takes a bemused but unsentimental view of times gone by. And he seems no less fascinated by the future, which is understandable. His own looks very bright." - Janet Maslin, The New York Times, 1985

Selected by Anurag Mehta, Kevin Feige, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Hamid-Reza Sadr, Jose Luis Guarner.

456 → 429 → 444 → 392 → 361 → 364 → 372

Amazon Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times) Slant Magazine

Deliverance

JOHN BOORMAN (376)

1972 | 109m | Col | USA | Adventure Drama, Buddy Film

Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Bill McKinney, James Dickey, Herbert "Cowboy"" Coward, Ed Ramey, Billy Redden, Seamon Glass

"Terrific boy's own adventure stuff with adult ingredients of graphic mutilation and buggery, but Boorman is never content either to leave it at that or to subscribe to the ecological concerns of James Dickey's novel. Instead, he adds a dark twist of his own by suggesting that concern is too late." - Tom Milne, Time Out

Selected by Peter Cowie, Mark Borchardt, Henrik Uth Jensen, Derek Adams, Richard Barkley.

282 → 293 → 279 → 295 → 357 → 376 → 373

Amazon Film Reference Slant Magazine

I Vitelloni

FEDERICO FELLINI (360)

1953 | 104m | BW | Italy | Comedy Drama, Satire

Franco Interlenghi, Alberto Sordi, Franco Fabrizi, Leopoldo Trieste, Riccardo Fellini, Leonora Ruffo, Lida Baarova, Arlette Sauvage, Jean Brochard, Achille Majeroni

"A year before La Strada' brought director Federico Fellini international renown, he made I Vitelloni, a semi-autobiographical film about a group of 30-ish buddies in a small, Adriatic town who are loafing and wasting their lives... It's a film of sensitivity, observation and humor - a must-see for Fellini enthusiasts and a worthwhile investment for everyone else." - Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, 2003

Selected by Mike Newell, Philip Kaufman, Roger Michell, Philip Haas, Michel Boujut.

351 → 346 → 409 → 399 → 362 → 360 → 374

Amazon Bright Lights Film Journal Criterion Collection Essay

375

376

377

The Dead

JOHN HUSTON (369)

1987 | 83m | Col | USA | Period Film, Marriage Drama

Anjelica Huston, Donal McCann, Helena Carroll, Dan O'Herlihy, Donal Donnelly, Cathleen Delany, Ingrid Craigie, Rachael Dowling, Marie Kean, Frank Patterson

"What looked unimaginative then now appears bold, almost experimental: The Dead sometimes looks a little like an old-style live television broadcast of a stage-play on a single set, but this unitary effect has rigour, clarity and life. Huston holds his nerve and just follows, with eagle-eyed attention to detail, the inconsequential chatter and the to-ings and fro-ings of the dinner-jacketed folk." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 2006

Selected by Carlos F. Heredero, Jacques Aumont, Miguel Picazo, Javier Marias, Vincent Pinel.

585 → 618 → 402 → 416 → 379 → 369 → 375

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies Film Reference

Frankenstein

JAMES WHALE (371)

1931 | 70m | BW | USA | Horror, Gothic Film

Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Edward Van Sloan, Dwight Frye, Frederick Kerr, Lionel Belmore, Michael Mark, Marilyn Harris

"Directed by James Whale, an underrated filmmaker recently given some overdue attention by way of Gods And Monsters, Frankenstein works as a fast-moving thriller and, even now, a stylish, frighteningly atmospheric horror film, but also as a sad outcast parable. Frankenstein's creature may be a monstrosity, but he's also instantly sympathetic to anyone who's ever felt like a misfit." - Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club, 2002

Selected by Federico Fellini, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, Pedro Olea, Jose Sacristan.

324 → 313 → 340 → 365 → 401 → 371 → 376

Amazon Time Out Filmsite

Accattone

PIER PAOLO PASOLINI (363)

• Accatone (alternative spelling)

1961 | 120m | BW | Italy | Urban Drama, Psychological Drama

Franco Citti, Franca Pasut, Roberto Scaringella, Silvana Corsini, Paola Guidi, Adriana Asti, Adele Cambria, Luciano Conti, Luciano Gonini, Renato Capogna

"Treating a social milieu Pasolini knew at first hand, his first film as a director was misunderstood by many critics when it was first released as a return to the canons of Italian neo-realism of the '40s and '50s. In fact, its editing style, use of close-ups, dialogue in the Romanesco vernacular all betray an originality much more of a piece with Pasolini's later work than with neo-realism." - Rod McShane, Time Out

Selected by Bernardo Bertolucci, Yomota Inuhiko, Wally Hammond, Verina Glaessner, Alberto Farassino.

374 → 388 → 383 → 348 → 341 → 363 → 377

Amazon Senses of Cinema Film Reference

378↑

379↑

380↑

Kes

KEN LOACH (478)

1969 | 113m | Col | UK | Coming-of-Age, Family Drama

David Bradley, Lynne Perrie, Freddie Fletcher, Colin Welland, Brian Glover, Bob Bowes, Bernard Atha, Laurence Bould, Joey Kaye, Robert Naylor

"Barry Hines' novel, about a young schoolboy in Barnsley who attempts to escape the tedium and meaninglessness of his uninviting working-class future by caring for and training a kestrel that he finds, is never allowed to fall into undue sentimentality by Loach's low-key direction. Rather than a tale of a boy and his pet, the film is a lucid and moving examination of the narrow options open to people without money, family stability and support, or education." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out

Selected by Paul Greengrass, Gurinder Chadha, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Sally Hibbin, Nina Hibbing.

427 → 350 → 405 → 422 → 451 → 478 → 378

Amazon BFI Screen Online Strictly Film School

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

GEORGE ROY HILL (379)

1969 | 112m | Col | USA | Western, Buddy Film

Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Strother Martin, Henry Jones, Jeff Corey, Cloris Leachman, Ted Cassidy, George Furth, Kenneth Mars

"Note-perfect performances, a screenplay steeped in both nostalgia and a timely sense of insight, and anti-heroes you can't help but love: it's no surprise that the always re-watchable Butch And Sundance was once labelled the most likeable film ever made." - Bob McCabe, Empire

Selected by David Fincher, Vadim Jean, Michael Parkinson, Jurgen Egger, Sathyan Ramesh.

537 → 556 → 414 → 402 → 387 → 388 → 379

Amazon The A.V. Club Metacritic

Casque d'or

JACQUES BECKER (382)

• Golden Marie (USA title)

1952 | 96m | BW | France | Crime Drama, Melodrama

Simone Signoret, Serge Reggiani, Claude Dauphin, Raymond Bussieres, Gaston Modot, Paul Barge, Paul Azais, Loleh Bellon, Claude Castaing, Jean Clarieux

"Along with Touchez pas au grisbi and Le Trou, Casque d’or is now widely recognized as the summit of Jacques Becker’s achievement as a filmmaker, a distillation of everything that’s most personal and central to his vision." - Philip Kemp, The Criterion Collection, 2005

Selected by Aki Kaurismäki, Jean-Pierre Berthome, Bertrand Tavernier, Kenneth Turan, Martin Casariego.

331 → 357 → 314 → 340 → 351 → 382 → 380

Amazon Film Reference Chicago Reader (Dave Kehr)

381

382↑

383

Foolish Wives

ERICH VON STROHEIM (370)

1922 | 117m | BW | USA | Drama

Erich von Stroheim, Maude George, Mae Busch, Rudolph Christians, Miss DuPont, Dale Fuller, Al Edmundsen, Cesare Gravina, Malvina Polo, Louis K. Webb

"Even in its present shape the film is one of the most stunning of the silent era. It also exercised a major influence on future directors, including Renoir, Buñuel, and Vigo. Von Stroheim shows a world that lies to itself, where swindlers and rich people mix, and where the heroine reads a book called Foolish Wives. " - Michel Ciment, Film Reference

Selected by Jesus Franco, Carlos Garcia Brusco, Pere Gimferrer, Jean-Charles Tacchella, Fanny Lignon.

824 → 763 → 396 → 441 → 462 → 370 → 381

Amazon Slant Magazine Wikipedia

A Streetcar Named Desire

ELIA KAZAN (394)

1951 | 122m | BW | USA | Marriage Drama, Psychological Drama

Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden, Rudy Bond, Nick Dennis, Peg Hillias, Wright King, Richard Garrick, Ann Dere

"The film itself, hailed as realistic in 1951, now seems claustrophobic and mannered - and all the more effective for that... Despite the overwhelming power of Brando's performance, Streetcar is one of the great ensemble pieces in the movies." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1993

Selected by Les Blank, Paul Burston, Susannah Frankel, Kenneth Turan, Andrew Chan.

0 → 0 → 429 → 356 → 388 → 394 → 382

Amazon The Washington Post Film Reference

The Wedding March

ERICH VON STROHEIM (372)

1928 | 113m | BW | USA | Drama, Melodrama

Erich von Stroheim, Fay Wray, Matthew Betz, ZaSu Pitts, George Fawcett, Maude George, George Nichols, Dale Fuller, Hughie Mack, Cesare Gravina

"Like Foolish Wives, Greed and Queen Kelly, The Wedding March (originally made in two parts, of which only the first is extant) survives as a mutilated masterpiece... it is the love scenes, played beneath shimmering apple blossoms in lyrical soft focus, that stick in the memory, ironically turning what is now the film's ending - the frustration of that love - into one of the director's most bitterly pessimistic scenes." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out

Selected by Peter von Bagh, Stefan Grissemann, Claus Philipp, Agustin L. Sotto, Hans Schifferle.

459 → 498 → 356 → 322 → 350 → 372 → 383

Amazon Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum) Allmovie

384

385

386↑

The Navigator

BUSTER KEATON & DONALD CRISP (375)

1924 | 59m | BW | USA | Comedy, Sea Adventure

Buster Keaton, Frederick Vroom, Kathryn McGuire

"Gag for gag, one of the funniest of all Keaton's features as he copes with the snags involved in running a deserted ocean liner single-handed, philosophically accepting the fact that machinery has a malevolent will of its own." - Tom Milne, Time Out

Selected by Terry Jones, Vincent Ward, Peter Keough, Pascal Merigeau, Terrence Rafferty.

218 → 234 → 289 → 317 → 355 → 375 → 384

Amazon Ozu's World Movie Reviews Chicago Reader (Dave Kehr)

Marnie

ALFRED HITCHCOCK (374)

1964 | 129m | Col | USA | Romantic Mystery, Psychological Thriller

Sean Connery, Tippi Hedren, Diane Baker, Martin Gabel, Louise Latham, Alan Napier, Mariette Hartley, Bruce Dern, Bob Sweeney, Milton Selzer

"Universally despised on its first release, Marnie remains one of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest and darkest achievements... The mise-en-scene tends toward a painterly abstraction, as Hitchcock employs powerful masses, blank colors, and studiously unreal, spatially distorted settings. Theme and technique meet on the highest level of film art." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by Bernardo Bertolucci, Wim Wenders, Ken Mogg, David Meeker, John Russell Taylor.

244 → 260 → 296 → 337 → 346 → 374 → 385

Amazon The A.V. Club Slant Magazine

Evil Dead II

SAM RAIMI (402)

1987 | 85m | Col | USA | Horror, Horror Comedy

Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley, Theodore Raimi, Denise Bixler, Richard Domeier, Lou Hancock, John Peaks, Snowy Winters

"Evil Dead 2 is a comedy disguised as a blood-soaked shock-a-rama. It looks superficially like a routine horror movie, a vomitorium designed to separate callow teenagers from their lunch. But look a little closer and you'll realize that the movie is a fairly sophisticated satire. Level One viewers will say it's in bad taste. Level Two folks like myself will perceive that it is about bad taste." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1987

Selected by Edgar Wright, Justine Elias, Sean Byrne, Louis Leterrier, Cheryl Dunye.

871 → 783 → 0 → 448 → 442 → 402 → 386

Amazon Shooting Down Pictures Slant Magazine

387

388↑

389↑

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

JOHN CASSAVETES (344)

1976 | 109m | Col | USA | Crime, Crime Drama

Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel, Azizi Johari, Meade Roberts, Alice Fredlund, Virginia Carrington, Soto Joe Hugh, Robert Phillips, Morgan Woodward

"In John Cassavetes’ personal cinema, the director was always trying to break away from the formulas of Hollywood narrative, in order to uncover some fugitive truth about the way people behave... Nowhere was the tension between Cassavetes’ linear and digressive, driven and entropic tendencies more sharply fought out than in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, one of his most fascinating achievements." - Phillip Lopate, The Criterion Collection, 2004

Selected by Jeremy Thomas, Bruce LaBruce, Claire Denis, Larry Clark, Chris Petit.

454 → 411 → 381 → 368 → 359 → 344 → 387

Amazon Derek Malcolm's Century of Films The Criterion Collection

Claire's Knee

ERIC ROHMER (416)

• Le Genou de Claire (original title)

1971 | 103m | Col | France | Comedy Drama, Comedy of Manners

Jean-Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu, Beatrice Romand, Laurence De Monaghan, Michele Montel, Fabrice Luchini, Gerard Falconetti

"The penultimate entry in Eric Rohmer's series of Six Moral Tales, and the loveliest, most crystalline of the lot. With his serenely precise plot structures and camera placements, Rohmer is the greatest logician of the movies; he treats the mysteries of love as if they were math problems, but with such generous concern that he never betrays the humanity of his characters." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by Neil LaBute, Ken Mogg, Tom Milne, Robert Benton, David Robert Mitchell.

487 → 482 → 440 → 450 → 385 → 416 → 388

Amazon The Criterion Collection (Molly Haskell) Senses of Cinema

The Servant

JOSEPH LOSEY (411)

1963 | 115m | BW | UK | Drama, Psychological Drama

Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Wendy Craig, Sarah Miles, Catherine Lacey, Richard Vernon, Ann Firbank, Patrick Magee, Harold Pinter, Doris Knox

"As in plays such as The Birthday Party and The Caretaker Pinter's spare, elliptical dialogue, with its pauses and silences, is the perfect vehicle for expressing the unspoken dynamics of human relationships and for establishing a pervasive sense of menace and unease. More important still, however, is Losey's masterly direction, elaborate yet tightly controlled and never merely decorative." - Julian Petley, Film Reference

Selected by Gore Verbinski, Paolo D'Agostini, Liliana Cavani, Juan Carlos Laviana, Laurent Vachaud.

410 → 351 → 349 → 359 → 390 → 411 → 389

Amazon Bright Lights Film Journal Screen Online

390

391↑

392↑

Spartacus

STANLEY KUBRICK (379)

1960 | 184m | Col | USA | Sword-and-Sandal, Historical Epic

Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Tony Curtis, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, Nina Foch, Woody Strode, John Ireland

"Stanley Kubrick's Oscar-winning Technicolor ’Scope sandal saga – centred on a Roman slave revolt headed by Kirk Douglas’s titular folklore hero – has aged amazingly well... This is widescreen, epic filmmaking on a massive scale." - Derek Adams, Time Out, 2009

Selected by Tanvir Mokammel, Philip Saville, Mark Jancovich, Sally Hibbin, Gerard Langlois.

416 → 378 → 410 → 326 → 349 → 379 → 390

Amazon The Criterion Collection Images Movie Journal

Forbidden Games

RENÉ CLÉMENT (422)

• Jeux interdits (original title)

1951 | 87m | BW | France | Childhood Drama, War Drama

Brigitte Fossey, Georges Poujouly, Lucien Hubert, Suzanne Courtal, Jacques Marin, Laurence Badie, Andre Wasley, Amedee, Denise Pereonne, Louis Sainteve

"Over the years countless films have been made about war, its horrors and its devastations. Few, however, have been as moving and heartfelt as René Clément’s Forbidden Games. The Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 1952, this deeply touching French drama has stirred the emotions of every moviegoer who has had the good fortune to see it." - David Ehrenstein, The Criterion Collection, 1988

Selected by Hubert Cornfield, Bryan Forbes, Xavier Dolan, Kihachi Okamoto, Haruo Mizuno.

334 → 363 → 387 → 367 → 398 → 422 → 391

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies The Criterion Collection (Peter Matthews)

The Killing

STANLEY KUBRICK (398)

1956 | 83m | BW | USA | Crime Thriller, Film Noir

Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince (1) Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., Ted De Corsia, Timothy Carey, Joseph Sawyer, Jay Adler

"Characteristically Kubrick in both its mechanistic coldness and its vision of human endeavour undone by greed and deceit, this noir-ish heist movie is nevertheless far more satisfying than most of his later work, due both to a lack of bombastic pretensions and to the style fitting the subject matter... Kubrick's essentially heartless, beady-eyed observation of human foibles lacks the dimension of the genre's classics, but the likes of Windsor, Carey and Cook more than compensate." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out

Selected by Iciar Bollain, Brett Ratner, Nik Powell, Albert Band, Rogerio Sganzerla.

602 → 646 → 528 → 596 → 555 → 398 → 392

Amazon Noir of the Week Wikipedia