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  The 1,000 Greatest Films The Top 500 (451-500)  
  • 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  
     
     
     
 
451   452   453
JFK
OLIVER STONE (418)
1991 | 188m | Col-BW | USA | Political Thriller, Paranoid Thriller
Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones, Laurie Metcalf, Michael Rooker, Jay O. Sanders, Sally Kirkland, Edward Asner, Jack Lemmon
"The first order of business concerning JFK, Oliver Stone's movie about the Kennedy assassination, is entertainment. As such, Stone creates a riveting marriage of fact and fiction, hypothesis and empirical proof in the edge-of-the-seat spirit of a conspiracy thriller. It doesn't hurt matters that his subject -- who really killed Kennedy -- is the most fascinating whodunit in modern history." - Desson Howe, The Washington Post, 1991
Selected by Kevin Smith, Alejandro Amenábar, Gary Crowdus, Alexandre Tylski, Matt Zoller Seitz.
665 → 685 → 487 → 492 → 396 → 418 → 451
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Reverse Shot
 
India Song
MARGUERITE DURAS (433)
1974 | 120m | Col | France | Avant-garde/Experimental, Psychological Drama
Delphine Seyrig, Michel Lonsdale, Mathieu Carriere, Claude Mann, Vernon Dobtcheff, Didier Flamand, Claude Juan, Satasinh Manila, Nicole Hiss, Monique Simonet
"Duras' thin dramas are perceived through layers upon layers of style—she's the Busby Berkeley of structuralism. In this 1974 film, she uses constantly shifting tenses, rigorous patterns of camera movement (and stillness), acting boiled down to broad isolated gestures, nonsynchronous dialogue, and a dozen other radical devices. The result is a film that is extremely boring in rather fascinating ways, well worth seeing for those with a tolerance for stasis and a taste for French abstraction." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Richard Dyer, Michel Chion, Sakari Toiviainen, Atom Egoyan, Anne-Marie Baron.
417 → 455 → 425 → 449 → 409 → 433 → 452
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Cinepassion
 
The Adventures of Robin Hood
MICHAEL CURTIZ & WILLIAM KEIGHLEY (434)
1938 | 102m | Col | USA | Swashbuckler, Romantic Adventure
Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Eugene Pallette, Alan Hale, Patric Knowles, Melville Cooper, Ian Hunter, Una O'Connor
"William Keighley and Michael Curtiz's rambunctious 1938 masterpiece—and Hollywood's definitive swashbuckler... In the most engaging performance of his career, Errol Flynn is jaunty, romantic, and larger than life, but also slyly funny as the Saxon knight who takes on the nasty Normans... Robin Hood is movie pageantry at its best, done in the grand manner of silent spectacles, brimming over with the sort of primitive energy that drew people to the movies in the first place." - Elliott Stein, The Village Voice, 2003
Selected by Robert Clampett, Jerry Lewis, Marjorie Bilbow, Lasse Bergstrom, Antonio Mercero.
355 → 372 → 441 → 464 → 488 → 434 → 453
Amazon  Filmsite  The A.V. Club
 

          
454   455   456
Dead Man
JIM JARMUSCH (501)
1995 | 121m | BW | USA-Germany | Hybrid Western, Psychological Western
Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Robert Mitchum, Lance Henriksen, Gabriel Byrne, John Hurt, Alfred Molina, Crispin Glover, Michael Wincott, Mili Avital
"A quantum leap by American independent Jim Jarmusch—a hypnotic and beautiful black-and-white western... This masterpiece is simultaneously a mystical, highly poetic account of dying; a well-researched appreciation of Native American cultures; a frightening portrait of modern American violence and capitalist greed that refuses to traffic in the stylistic alibis of Hollywood; a warm, hilarious depiction of cross-cultural friendship; and a hallucinatory trip across the American wilderness." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Jill Godmilow, Daniil Dondurei, Alexandre Tylski, Alexandra Seitz, Andreas Kilb.
475 → 504 → 398 → 445 → 472 → 501 → 454
Amazon  The Film Journal  Metacritic
 
Dersu Uzala
AKIRA KUROSAWA (436)
1975 | 140m | Col | Japan-Russia | Period Film, Adventure Drama
Maksim Munzuk, Yuri Solomin, Mikhail Bychkov, Suimenkul Chokmorov, Svetlana Danilchenko, Dmitri Korshikov, Vladimir Kremena, Aleksandr Pyatkov, B. Khorulev, Sovetbek Dzhumadylov
"Director Akira Kurosawa is known for his epics, and this Russian-Japanese co-production was one of the most sweeping of his long and brilliant career... Physically, it is one of the most impressive filmed testaments to the majesty of nature. Breathtaking cinematography makes the Siberia-Mongolian frontier the real star of this slow-moving, proud, and unconventional buddy film. Kurosawa has made more accessible films in plot and structure, but the rugged beauty of this work is unsurpassed in his canon." - Michael Betzold, Allmovie
Selected by Teshome Gabriel, Sally Hibbin, David Weissman, Tadeusz Soboelwski, Thomas Bourguignon.
560 → 594 → 587 → 451 → 418 → 436 → 455
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Wikipedia
 
Scenes from a Marriage
INGMAR BERGMAN (437)
• Scener ur ett äktenskap (original title)
1973 | 168m | Col | Sweden | Marriage Drama, Psychological Drama
Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Bibi Andersson, Jan Malmsjo, Gunnel Lindblom, Anita Wall, Barbro Hiort af Ornas, Lena Bergman, Wenche Foss, Rosanna Mariano
"Part of the pleasure in Scenes from a Marriage is getting to watch two of the greatest modern screen actors, Liv Ullman and Erland Johannsen, tangle with each other. The technical solidity, affective range, attractiveness, and chemistry of these two performers ensure that we are in secure hands, however bumpy a ride we may be in for emotionally. Bergman, following his master, Carl Dreyer, reconstitutes the cinematic art as a language of faces." - Phillip Lopate, The Criterion Collection, 2004
Selected by Neil LaBute, Olivier Assayas, Jay DiPietro, Bill Pullman, Robert Weide.
604 → 570 → 672 → 738 → 499 → 437 → 456
Amazon  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)  Images Movie Journal
 

         
457   458   459
Dumbo
BEN SHARPSTEEN (448)
1941 | 64m | Col | USA | Animated Musical, Children's Fantasy
Voices of Edward Brophy, Herman Bing, Sterling Holloway, Verna Felton, Cliff Edwards, Billy Bletcher, Jim Carmichael, Noreen Gamill, Malcolm Hutton, John McLeish
"With Fantasia, Disney explicitly set out to test the technical limits of animation, but with Dumbo, however inadvertently, the studio tested the emotional limits. Though it ultimately provides sweet redemption, Dumbo plunges its hero pretty close to the heart of darkness. Not that its technical achievements should be ignored: From the bizarre, justly famous "Pink Elephants On Parade" sequence to its less show-stopping moments, Dumbo captures Disney feature filmmaking, still near its infancy, at its best." - Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club, 2002
Selected by John Lasseter, Carolee Schneemann, Gael Garcia Bernal, Norton Virgien, Leonard Maltin.
570 → 612 → 668 → 706 → 480 → 448 → 457
Amazon  Pop Matters  Slant Magazine
 
Terra em Transe
GLAUBER ROCHA (477)
Land in Anguish (English title); Entranced Earth (alternative title)
1967 | 106m | BW | Brazil | Drama, Political Drama
Jardel Filho, Paulo Autran, Jose Lewgoy, Glauce Rocha, Paulo Gracindo, Hugo Carvana, Danuza Leao, Jofre Soares, Modesto De Souza, Mario Lago
"That it is popular—not populist—culture which offers the only possibility for national liberation is made explicit by Rocha in Land in Anguish, where he contrasts traditional values to those of liberal populism, which is shown to lead inevitably to co-option by the bourgeoisie. Rocha’s efforts to form a genuinely Brazilian cinema, founded on authentic themes and expressed through an idiom peculiar to Latin America, led him to make beautiful and moving films which continue to speak for his ideals." - John Mraz, International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers, 2000
Selected by Carlos Diegues, Jytte Jensen, Walter Salles, Jeanine Meerapfel, Jose Carlos Avellar.
342 → 311 → 368 → 420 → 444 → 477 → 458
Amazon  Film International  The Lumière Reader
 
Winter Light
INGMAR BERGMAN (452)
• Nattvardsgästerna (original title)
1962 | 80m | BW | Sweden | Psychological Drama, Religious Drama
Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Max von Sydow, Gunnel Lindblom, Allan Edwall, Kolbjorn Knudsen, Olof Thunberg, Elsa Ebbesen, Lars-Olof Andersson, Eddie Axberg
"Like Quattrocento Italian painting, Ming porcelain, or the late quartets of Beethoven, Ingmar Bergman’s “chamber” films are an acquired taste. Winter Light represents the Swedish director’s most concentrated inquiry into the significance of religion, and of Lutheranism specifically... Immaculately shot by Sven Nykvist, acted with extraordinary intensity by the entire cast—and by Gunnar Björnstrand as Tomas Ericsson and Ingrid Thulin as Märta Lundberg in particular—Winter Light clasps us by the throat with numbed fingers and demands a response." - Peter Cowie, The Criterion Collection, 2003
Selected by Robert Towne, Philip French, Carlos F. Heredero, Judith Crist, Andrei Tarkovsky.
420 → 414 → 443 → 479 → 504 → 452 → 459
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Slant Magazine
 
 
 
 
 
460   461   462
Raising Arizona
JOEL COEN & ETHAN COEN (473)
1987 | 92m | Col | USA | Crime Comedy, Domestic Comedy
Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson, John Goodman, William Forsythe, Sam McMurray, Randall 'Tex' Cobb, M. Emmet Walsh, Frances McDormand, T.J. Kuhn
"The superbly labyrinthine plotting of Blood Simple must have been a hard act to follow; praise be, then, to the Brothers Coen for confounding all expectations with this fervently inventive comedy... What makes this hectic farce so fresh and funny is the sheer fertility of the writing, while the lives and times of Hi, Ed and friends are painted in splendidly seedy colours, turning Arizona into a mythical haven for a memorable gaggle of no-hopers, halfwits and has-beens. Starting from a point of delirious excess, the film leaps into dark and virtually uncharted territory to soar like a comet." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Selected by Lee Unkrich, Edgar Wright, Matt Stone, Antonia Bird, Christian Seidl.
841 → 830 → 747 → 602 → 647 → 473 → 460
Amazon  Metacritic  The Washington Post
 
My Life as a Dog
LASSE HALLSTRÖM (464)
• Mitt liv som hund (original title)
1985 | 101m | Col | Sweden | Comedy Drama, Childhood Drama
Anton Glanzelius, Manfred Serner, Anki Liden, Tomas von Bromssen, Melinda Kinnaman, Ing-mari Carlsson, Kicki Rundgren, Lennart Hjulstrom, Leif Erickson, Christina Carlwind
"Hallström’s oeuvre has unmistakable themes—the passage of the innocent outsider through an alien social landscape, and, contrastingly, the power of human idiosyncrasy in those societies. In effect, it’s a perspective generous to everything it surveys, and My Life is the most generous film Hallström has ever made. At the same time, it’s far from sentimental, exploring—as all memorable movies about childhood do—the contentious struggle to understand or at least withstand the bulldozing machinations of the adult world." - Michael Atkinson, The Criterion Collection, 2003
Selected by Roger Donaldson, Nick Broomfield, Stefan Schwartz, Claire Binns, Arthur Borman.
497 → 387 → 404 → 421 → 454 → 464 → 461
Amazon  Pop Matters  The Washington Post
 
The Last Detail
HAL ASHBY (547)
1973 | 105m | Col | USA | Buddy Film, Military Comedy
Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid, Clifton James, Michael Moriarty, Carol Kane, Luana Anders, Nancy Allen, Kathleen Miller, Gerry Salsberg
"Two career sailors escort a backward young colleague to naval prison to serve an eight-year stretch for petty thievery... A tough-talking, sparely directed effort by Hal Ashby, with an immaculate performance by Jack Nicholson as the arrogant and salty (but feeling) sailor who tries to stay in charge of the odyssey, and almost doesn't." - Don Druker, Chicago Reader
Selected by Judd Apatow, Wes Anderson, Max Winkler, Neil Burger, Evgeny Tsymbal.
0 → 980 → 0 → 0 → 491 → 547 → 462
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Culture Vulture
 

         
463   464   465
Raise the Red Lantern
ZHANG YIMOU (454)
• Da hong deng long gao gao gua (original title)
1991 | 125m | Col | Hong Kong | Period Film, Marriage Drama
Gong Li, Ma Jingwu, He Caifei, Cao Cuifeng, Jin Shuyuan, Kong Lin, Ding Weimin, Cui Zhihgang, Chu Xiao, Cao Zhengyin
"Yimou uses the bold, bright colors of Ju Dou again this time; his film was shot in the classic three-strip Technicolor process, now abandoned by Hollywood, which allows a richness of reds and yellows no longer possible in American films. There is a sense in which Raise the Red Lantern exists solely for the eyes. Entirely apart from the plot, there is the sensuous pleasure of the architecture, the fabrics, the color contrasts, the faces of the actresses. But beneath the beauty is the cruel reality of this life, just as beneath the comfort of the rich man's house is the sin of slavery." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1992
Selected by Dan Georgakas, Paul Cox, Jeanette Gentele, Aruna Vasudev, Andreas Kilb.
450 → 413 → 355 → 410 → 448 → 454 → 463
Amazon  The Washington Post  New York Sun
 
The Young Girls of Rochefort
JACQUES DEMY (456)
• Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (original title)
1967 | 124m | Col | France | Musical Romance, Musical Comedy
Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, George Chakiris, Jacques Perrin, Michel Piccoli, Jacques Riberolles, Grover Dale, Henri Cremieux, Danielle Darrieux, Gene Kelly
"Demy's most ambitious film and the one I cherish the most is this 1967 big-budget musical shot exclusively on location, a tale of various dreamers searching for and usually missing their ideal mates, who are usually only blocks away... Demy pays tribute to the American musical yet mixes in accoutrements of French poetic realism: dreams and reality coexist more strangely and stubbornly than in most other musicals. The results may be quintessentially French, but the energy and optimism are clearly inspired by America, and Gene Kelly's appearances are sublime." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Geoff Andrew, David Bordwell, Keith Uhlich, Jean Olle-Laprune, Gerard Langlois.
257 → 266 → 288 → 417 → 424 → 456 → 464
Amazon  Salon  San Francisco Chronicle
 
Breakfast at Tiffany's
BLAKE EDWARDS (499)
1961 | 115m | Col | USA | Romantic Comedy, Sophisticated Comedy
Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, Mickey Rooney, John McGiver, Jose-Luis de Villalonga, Dorothy Whitney, Stanley Adams
"Between Edwards' frothy pacing, Franz F. Planer's lovely location camerawork, and Henry Mancini's memorable score, Breakfast at Tiffany's is a thoroughly charming and witty valentine to one special woman and the city she loves that still enchants more than 40 years after it first hit the screen." - Mark Deming, Allmovie
Selected by David Robert Mitchell, Jerry Lewis, Hans Schifferle, Fernando Mendez-Leite, Gerardo Vera.
733 → 653 → 450 → 401 → 455 → 499 → 465
Amazon  Metacritic  Slant Magazine
 

         
466   467   468
It's a Gift
NORMAN Z. MCLEOD (442)
1934 | 73m | BW | USA | Comedy, Screwball Comedy
W.C. Fields, Kathleen Howard, Jean Rouverol, Julian Madison, Tommy Bupp, Baby LeRoy, Tammany Young, Morgan Wallace, Charles Sellon, Josephine Whittell
"It's a masterpiece, and Fields' definitive study in the horrors of small town family life. Every person and thing around causes sublime winces of irritation... There's little sentiment (or plot) to provide any relief, either; the film's string of set pieces (three of them taken from the 1925 Ziegfeld Follies) maintains a relentless pace and tone, making this easily the most devastating comedy of the '30s. " - Geoff Brown, Time Out
Selected by Gerald Peary, Daniel Talbot, Geoff Brown, Gavin Millar, Frieda Grafe.
343 → 374 → 369 → 423 → 428 → 442 → 466
Amazon  Filmsite  Wikipedia
 
Nostalghia
ANDREI TARKOVSKY (444)
• Nostalgia (English title)
1983 | 120m | Col | Italy | Drama, Psychological Drama
Oleg Yankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano, Patrizia Terreno, Laura De Marchi, Delia Boccardo, Milena Vukotic, Raffaele Di Mario, Rate Furlan, Livio Galassi
"Another of Tarkovsky's strange, hauntingly beautiful meditations on man's search for self. The film may forsake the run-down space station of Solaris or the miraculous Zone of Stalker for the hilltop villages of Tuscany, but its framework is familiar (flashbacks in spectral black-and-white, the use of rich sepia alongside pastel colour to blur distinctions between dream and reality), and so are its themes (memory, melancholia, disenchantment with the material world, dogged stumbling after salvation)." - Angus MackInnon, Time Out
Selected by Veronique Godard, Kim Ji-Seok, John Gianvito, Hans Gunther Pflaum, David Sterritt.
406 → 410 → 406 → 425 → 431 → 444 → 467
Amazon  TCM  Strictly Film School
 
Edward Scissorhands
TIM BURTON (494)
1990 | 100m | Col | USA | Fantasy, Fantasy Comedy
Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Vincent Price, Alan Arkin, Robert Oliveri, Conchata Ferrell, Caroline Aaron
"Strange, funny and powerfully moving… Burton has found a way to move through camp to emotional authenticity, to communicate-through a concentration of style and an innocence of regard-a depth and sincerity of feeling that his deliberately (and often, comically) flat characters could not summon on their own." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune, 1990
Selected by Floria Sigismondi, Isabel Coixet, Rainer Knepperges, Ricardo Aldarondo, Stephane Levy.
677 → 713 → 711 → 625 → 637 → 494 → 468
Amazon  Rolling Stone  The Washington Post
 

         
469   470   471
Videodrome
DAVID CRONENBERG (492)
1983 | 90m | Col | Canada | Media Satire, Sci-Fi Horror
James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky, Jack Creley, Les Carlson, Lynne Gorman, David Bolt, Lally Cadeau, Harvey Chao
"Videodrome is a key work in the David Cronenberg oeuvre. For this Virgil among filmmakers, our personable guide to bio- and cyberhell, this movie about how technology alters its users was not only prophetic but a personal artistic breakthrough. Prior to Videodrome, Cronenberg had been concerned with the external side effects of so-called medical advances. By inviting us to consider both the physical and psychological repercussions of new technolo­gies, Videodrome anticipated Cronenberg’s mature masterpieces The Fly (1986) and Dead Ringers (1988)." - Carrie Rickey, The Criterion Collection, 1984
Selected by Chris Rodley, Tom Mes, Christophe Goffette, Alexander Horwath, Frances Lynn.
558 → 524 → 448 → 505 → 463 → 492 → 469
Amazon  Metacritic  The A.V. Club
 
A Touch of Zen
KING HU (514)
• Hsia nu (original title)
1969 | 200m | Col | Taiwan | Drama, Martial Arts
Billy Chan, Ping-yu Chang, Roy Chiao, Shih Chun, Hsue Han, Yin-Chieh Han, Feng Hsu, Ching-Ying Lam, Tien Miao, Peng Tien
"King Hu's remarkable Ming Dynasty epic deliberately makes itself impossible to define, beginning as a ghost story, then turning into a political thriller, and finally becoming a metaphysical battle as the role of the monk Hui-Yuan (Chiao) comes to the fore... Delights include a heroine who holds her own with men without being 'masculine', and transcendent moments like the stabbing of the monk, who bleeds gold... And the visual style will set your eyes on fire." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Selected by Chris Berry, Yomota Inuhiko, Peter Rist, Stephen Teo, Diego Brodersen.
391 → 409 → 477 → 468 → 565 → 514 → 470
Amazon  Reverse Shot  The New York Times
 
Three Colours: Red
KRSZYSTOF KIESLOWSKI (451)
• Trois couleurs: Rouge (original title); Red (alternative title)
1994 | 99m | Col | France-Switzerland-Poland | Drama, Psychological Drama
Irene Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Federique Feder, Jean-Pierre Lorit, Samuel Le Bihan, Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Benoit Regent, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Marion Stalens
"It's a film about destiny and chance, solitude and communication, cynicism and faith, doubt and desire; about lives affected by forces beyond rationalisation. The assured direction avoids woolly mysticism by using material resources - actors, colour, movement, composition, sound - to illuminate abstract concepts. Stunningly beautiful, powerfully scored and immaculately performed, the film is virtually flawless, and one of the very greatest cinematic achievements of the last few decades. A masterpiece." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Selected by Tim Lucas, Claire Binns, Angela Pope, Peter Debruge, Howard Feinstein.
412 → 383 → 418 → 463 → 436 → 451 → 471
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)
 

         
472   473   474
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
WERNER HERZOG (491)
Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (original title); Every Man for Himself and God Against All (alternative title)
1974 | 110m | Col | West Germany | Psychological Drama, Period Film
Bruno S., Walter Ladengast, Brigitte Mira, Herbert Achternbusch, Wolfgang Bauer, Wilhelm Bayer, Gloria Doer, Willy Semmelrogge, Volker Prechtel, Enno Patalas
"A film that shares with Aguirre, Wrath of God a fascination with historical manuscripts, an uneasy laughter at human aspiration, and an awe of landscape... Not the same dizzy folly as Aguirre, but Herzog's similarly long perspective conjures as powerful a picture of man's aimless tracks through an impassive landscape. Stunning." - Chris Peachment, Time Out
Selected by Dina Iordanova, Jonathan Romney, Tao Ruspoli, Patricia Rozema, Lotte H. Eisner.
357 → 375 → 462 → 484 → 524 → 491 → 472
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Pop Matters
 
All That Jazz
BOB FOSSE (399)
1979 | 123m | Col | USA | Showbiz Drama, Musical Drama
Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Ann Reinking, Leland Palmer, Cliff Gorman, Ben Vereen, Erzsebet Foldi, Michael Tolan, Max Wright, William LeMassena
"Fosse might owe a lot to Fellini's plunge into self-obsession, but the pungent texture of showbiz grime and sweaty, thrusting body geometry are completely his own. In powerhouse numbers like "Take Off With Us" and the infamous "Bye-Bye Love" (easily the longest on-screen death rattle of all time), Fosse brings his own unique style of rhythmic, dance-like film editing that he initiated with Cabaret to its apotheosis." - Eric Henderson, Slant Magazine, 2003
Selected by Jacques Goimard, R.J. Cutler, Juan Jose Campanella, David Fincher, Francois Ramasse.
547 → 499 → 604 → 454 → 414 → 399 → 473
Amazon  The A.V. Club  Wikipedia
 
The Shawshank Redemption
FRANK DARABONT (520)
1994 | 142m | Col | USA | Drama, Prison Film
Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler, Clancy Brown, Gil Bellows, Mark Rolston, James Whitmore, Jeffrey DeMunn, Larry Brandenburg
"Darabont's adaptation of a Stephen King novella is a throwback to the kind of serious, literate drama Hollywood used to make (Birdman of Alcatraz, say) though the big spiritual resolution takes some swallowing... Against this weighs the pleasure of discovering a first-time director with evident respect for the intelligence of his audience, brave enough to let character details accumulate without recourse to the fast-forward button. Darabont plays the long game and wins: this is an engrossing, superbly acted yarn, while the Shawshank itself is a truly formidable mausoleum." - Tom Charity, Time Out
Selected by Morgan Spurlock, Habib Azar, Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, Sharat Raju.
394 → 390 → 411 → 462 → 513 → 474
Amazon  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)  Rolling Stone
 

         
475   476   477
12 Angry Men
SIDNEY LUMET (484)
Twelve Angry Men (alternative spelling)
1957 | 95m | BW | USA | Drama, Courtroom Drama
Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Jack Klugman, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, George Voskovec, Robert Webber
"Lumet's origins as a director of teledrama may well be obvious here in his first film, but there is no denying the suitability of his style - sweaty close-ups, gritty monochrome 'realism', one-set claustrophobia - to his subject... What really transforms the piece from a rather talky demonstration that a man is innocent until proven guilty, is the consistently taut, sweltering atmosphere, created largely by Boris Kaufman's excellent camerawork. The result, however devoid of action, is a strangely realistic thriller." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Selected by Antonia Bird, Jacques Zimmer, Fanny Lignon, Heinz Niemann, Frederic Gimello.
437 → 688 → 517 → 510 → 473 → 484 → 475
Amazon  The A.V. Club  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
An Affair to Remember
LEO MCCAREY (463)
1957 | 115m | Col | USA |  Romance, Melodrama
Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Cathleen Nesbitt, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson, Robert Q. Lewis, Charles Watts, Fortunio Bonanova, Matt Moore, Louis Mercier
"A remake by Leo McCarey of his own 1939 classic Love Affair, the film progresses as a graceful switch from romantic comedy to weepie melodrama, reflecting the director's deep-rooted belief in the intricate bond between laughter and tears... McCarey is frequently compared to Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu, and indeed, An Affair to Remember looks back at Love Affair the way Ozu's Floating Weeds looks back at A Story of Floating Weeds: as a story that once moved the director, retold in changed times as an act of defiantly anachronistic humanism." - Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine, 2008
Selected by Thierry Jousse, Jerry Lewis, Jos Oliver, Eduardo Torres-Dulce, Paul Vecchiali.
582 → 626 → 452 → 407 → 468 → 463 → 476
Amazon  The A.V. Club  Wikipedia
 
The Producers
MEL BROOKS (485)
1968 | 88m | Col | USA | Showbiz Comedy, Farce
Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars, Dick Shawn, Estelle Winwood, Renee Taylor, Lee Meredith, Christopher Hewett, Andreas Voutsinas, Michael Davis
"Brooks's magnum opus is still a ferocious gale of bulldozing Jewish mockery, dominated by Zero Mostel's comb-over juggernaut. However familiar, it delivers like a shorted slot machine; memories of the tame and safely distant stage version will evaporate in the runway turbulence of Mostel's spittle-spray-in-your-eye performance. In fact, the more time passes the more combustible Brooks's burlesque of Nazism and the post-war remnants of old-school Jewish showbiz seems." - Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice, 2002
Selected by Jonathan Ross, Bill Plympton, Davina Belling, Patrick Laurent, Ray Bradbury.
523 → 543 → 548 → 553 → 528 → 485 → 477
Amazon  The A.V. Club  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 

          
478   479   480
Seven Chances
BUSTER KEATON (450)
1925 | 56m | BW | USA | Comedy of Errors, Romantic Comedy
Buster Keaton, Ruth Dwyer, T. Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards, Frances Raymond, Erwin Connelly, Jules Cowles, Jean Arthur, Lori Bara, Bartine Burkett
"Less ambitious and less concerned with plastic values than the best of Keaton, this is nevertheless a dazzlingly balletic comedy in which Buster has a matter of hours to acquire the wife on which a seven million dollar inheritance depends... From a leisurely start, the film takes off into a fantastically elaborate, gloriously inventive chase sequence, in which Buster escapes the mob of pursuing harridans only to find an escalating avalanche of rocks taking over at his heels as he hurtles downhill." - Tom Milne, Time Out
Selected by Mike Leigh, Terry Jones, Yvette Biro, Udagawa Koyo, Paul Vecchiali.
476 → 510 → 644 → 434 → 425 → 450 → 478
Amazon  Cinepassion  DVD Savant
 
The Tiger of Eschnapur
FRITZ LANG (455)
• Der Tiger von Eschnapur (original title); Tiger of Bengal (alternative title)
1958 | 101m | Col | Germany | Adventure Drama, Romantic Drama
Debra Paget, Walther Reyer, Paul Hubschmid, Claus Holm, Luciana Paluzzi, Valery Inkijinoff, Sabine Bethmann, Rene Deltgen, Jochen Brockmann, Victor Francen
"After years of working in Hollywood on mostly contemporary thrillers, Lang took advantage of an opportunity to work with lavish sets and colorful costumes. The visuals are the clear winner here, carrying along the story over some rough narrative patches... Contemporary audiences might find Hubschmid and Paget's acting stiff, but psychological nuance is not what Lang was looking for here, and the two do generate genuine sexual chemistry, especially in their flight across the desert which ends this installment." - Tom Wiener, Allmovie
Selected by Jesus Franco, Jean Douchet, Agustin L. Sotto, Pere Gimferrer, Jos Oliver.
539 → 528 → 546 → 536 → 558 → 455 → 479
Amazon  DVD Savant  Wikipedia
 
Le Voyage dans la lune
GEORGES MÉLIÈS (465)
• A Trip to the Moon (English title); Voyage to the Moon (alternative title)
1902 | 14m | BW | France | Science Fiction, Space Adventure
Victor Andre, Bleuette Bernon, Brunnet, Jeanne d'Alcy, Henri Delannoy, Depierre, Farjaut, Kelm, Georges Melies
"With its evocative sets Le voyage dans la lune has been frequently cited as seminal to the development of the German expressionist movement, while for its spontaneity and fantasy the film became a reference point for avant-garde filmmakers and surrealists. Buñuel, for one, acknowledged Le voyage dans la lune as a formative influence, while the films of René Clair and Jacques Prévert owe much to their pioneering compatriot." - R.F. Cousins, Film Reference
Selected by Pat Thomson, Freddy Buache, Raoul Coutard, Wilson Cunha, Bernard Cohn.
506 → 540 → 469 → 512 → 449 → 465 → 480
Amazon  Filmsite  Wikipedia
 

         
481   482   483
Cool Hand Luke
STUART ROSENBERG (489)
1967 | 126m | Col | USA| Drama, Prison Film
Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon, Lou Antonio, Robert Drivas, Strother Martin, Jo Van Fleet, Clifton James, Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton
"A caustically witty look at the American South and its still-surviving chain gangs, with Newman in fine sardonic form as the boss-baiter who refuses to submit and becomes a hero to his fellow-prisoners. Underlying the hard-bitten surface is a slightly uncomfortable allegory which identifies Newman as a Christ figure. But this scarcely detracts from the brilliantly idiosyncratic script (by Donn Pearce from his own novel) or from Conrad Hall's glittering camerawork." - Tom Milne, Time Out
Selected by Ramin Bahrani, Andrew Stanton, Russ Meyer, Jurgen Egger, Peter Debruge.
908 → 906 → 0 → 0 → 460 → 489 → 481
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Slant Magazine
 
Lola
JACQUES DEMY (453)
1961 | 90m | BW | France | Romantic Drama, Melodrama
Anouk Aimee, Marc Michel, Jacques Harden, Elina Labourdette, Alan Scott, Margo Lion, Annie Duperoux, Catherine Lutz, Corinne Marchand, Yvette Anziani
"Demy's insouciant first feature—shot by Raoul Coutard in black-and-white Cinema-scope in Demy's hometown of Nantes—is also his most New Wave... In between café blah-blah and wistful set pieces, Lola toys with a blatantly underdeveloped criminal subplot, but Demy is far more interested in evoking the excitement of first love and old movies than orchestrating a shoot-'em-up.... Like a Hollywood fairy tale, Lola is always threatening to turn into a musical. Its edge as a film comes from the fact that it never quite does." - J. Hoberman, The Village Voice, 2001
Selected by Jonathan Romney, Armond White, Jean-Pierre Berthome, Gerard Langlois, Pierre Sauvage.
329 → 335 → 344 → 411 → 434 → 453 → 482
Amazon  Metacritic  Slant Magazine
 
Scarface
HOWARD HAWKS (507)
Scarface, the Shame of the Nation (alternative title)
1932 | 90m | BW | USA | Gangster Film, Crime Drama
Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins, Boris Karloff, C. Henry Gordon, George Raft, Vince Barnett, Inez Palange, Edwin Maxwell
"Howard Hawks's 1932 masterpiece is a dark, brutal, exhilaratingly violent film, blending comedy and horror in a manner that suggests Chico Marx let loose with a live machine gun. Paul Muni gives his best performance as the simian hood Tony Camonte, whose one redeeming virtue is that he loves his sister (Ann Dvorak, of the limpid eyes and jutting limbs)... The supporting actors—Osgood Perkins, Karen Morely, Boris Karloff, Vince Barnett, George Raft (flipping his coin)—seem to have been chosen for their geometric qualities; the film is a symphony of body shapes and gestures, functioning dynamically as well as dramatically." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Marc Cerisuelo, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Rogerio Sganzerla, Olivier De Bruyn, Fernando Mendez-Leite.
507 → 529 → 532 → 490 → 453 → 507 → 483
Amazon  Filmsite  Film Reference
 

         
484   485   486
French Cancan
JEAN RENOIR (457)
1955 | 93m | Col | France | Comedy of Manners, Musical Comedy
Jean Gabin, Francoise Arnoul, Maria Felix, Anna Amendola, Dora Doll, Giani Esposito, Philippe Clay, Michel Piccoli, Edith Piaf, Patachou
"Renoir's return to film-making in France after an absence of fifteen years is a nostalgic studio reconstruction of the Paris of his painter father. Despite its artificiality and meandering plot construction - with Renoir falling in love with some of his minor characters - it brilliantly evokes the world of the French Impressionists, building into a comic riot of colour and movement... The climactic cancan scene is one of the finest dance sequences ever filmed, and worth the price of a ticket on its own." - Rod McShane, Time Out
Selected by Philip Strick, Tag Gallagher, Joseph McBride, Chris Fujiwara, Luciano Berriatua.
396 → 405 → 407 → 426 → 475 → 457 → 484
Amazon  The Criterion Collection (Andrew Sarris)  Senses of Cinema
 
Fat City
JOHN HUSTON (426)
1972 | 100m | Col | USA | Drama, Sports Drama
Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell, Candy Clark, Nicholas Colasanto, Art Aragon, Curtis Cokes, Sixto Rodriguez, Billy Walker, Wayne Mahan
"Marvellous, grimly downbeat study of desperate lives and the escape routes people construct for themselves, stunningly shot by Conrad Hall. The setting is Stockton, California, a dreary wasteland of smoky bars and sunbleached streets where the lives of two boxers briefly meet, one on the way up, one on the way down... Huston directs with the same puritanical rigour he brought to Wise Blood." - Tom Milne, Time Out
Selected by Michael Radford, Harmony Korine, Geoffrey Macnab, Auram Heffner, Miguel Picazo.
621 → 665 → 568 → 606 → 571 → 426 → 485
Amazon  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)  The Village Voice
 
A Moment of Innocence
MOHSEN MAKHMALBAF (459)
• Nun va Goldoon (original title)
1995 | 78m | Col | Iran-France-Switzerland | Comedy Drama, Satire
Mirhadi Taiebi, Ali Bakshi, Ammar Tafti, Mariyam Mohammad-Amini, Fariba Faghiri, Lotfollah Ghaslaghi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Moharram Zainlazadeh, Ali Irani, Hana Makhmalbaf
"Though its methods lie somewhere between Pirandello and Rashomon, A Moment Of Innocence adds a personal dimension that's uniquely its own, as Makhmalbaf's investigation into the past evolves into a touching act of contrition. On a more universal scale, he questions the use of violence as a catalyst for positive social change. Banned upon its initial release... A Moment Of Innocence is further evidence of Iran's cinematic vitality." - Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club, 2002
Selected by Mark Cousins, Michael Sicinski, Dina Iordanova, Alexander Payne, Hamid Dabashi.
541 → 517 → 564 → 412 → 437 → 459 → 486
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Slant Magazine
 

         
487   488   489
Fitzcarraldo
WERNER HERZOG (476)
1982 | 157m | Col | West Germany | Adventure Drama, Jungle Film
Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, Jose Lewgoy, Miguel Angel Fuentes, Paul Hittscher, Huerequeque Bohorquez, Grande Otelo, Peter Berling, David Perez Espinosa, Milton Nascimento
"In a long, slow, rewarding film, Kinski essentially plays a benevolent but no less monomaniacal variation on the character he played in Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath Of God, but rather than conquering the New World, here he seeks to bring culture to a land with a culture and a way of its own. Whether his dream is foolish, noble, or misguided is left entirely up to the viewer, though it's not hard to see where Herzog's sympathies lie." - Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club, 2002
Selected by Baz Luhrmann, Albert Maysles, Simeon Tegel, Raphael Bassan, Hideyuki Hirayama.
516 → 557 → 543 → 575 → 600 → 476 → 487
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Images Movie Journal
 
Faces
JOHN CASSAVETES (461)
1968 | 130m | BW | USA | Marriage Drama, Psychological Drama
John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery, Dorothy Gulliver, Joanne Moore Jordan, Darlene Conley, Gene Darfler
"John Cassavetes' Faces is the sort of film that makes you want to grab people by the neck and drag them into the theater and shout: "Here!" It would be a triumphant shout. Year after year, we get a tide of bilge that passes for "the American way of life" in the movies. We know it isn't like that. We don't live that way and neither does anyone we know. What Cassavetes has done is astonishing. He has made a film that tenderly, honestly and uncompromisingly examines the way we really live." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1968
Selected by Mark Borchardt, Jana Bokova, Hal Hartley, Andre S. Labarthe, Emma Gray Munthe.
403 → 404 → 437 → 447 → 469 → 461 → 488
Amazon  The Criterion Collection  Slant Magazine
 
Midnight Run
MARTIN BREST (497)
1988 | 122m | Col | USA | Action Comedy, Road Movie
Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto, John Ashton, Dennis Farina, Joe Pantoliano, Richard Foronjy, Robert Miranda, Jack Kehoe, Wendy Phillips
"Martin Brest directed this comedy thriller from a George Gallo script. Considering all the shopworn materials used here, including the aggressive banality of Danny Elfman's pop score, one's expectations quickly sink to zero; but miraculously, De Niro and Grodin turn this sow's ear into a plausible vehicle for a buddy movie, and thanks to both of them, this movie springs to life." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Doug Liman, Ruben Fleischer, Jay DiPietro, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Hans-Dieter Delkus.
0 → 593 → 550 → 615 → 514 → 497 → 489
Amazon  Metacritic  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)
 

         
490   491   492
Barton Fink
JOEL COEN & ETHAN COEN (470)
1991 | 117m | Col | USA | Comedy Drama, Black Comedy
John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, John Mahoney, Tony Shalhoub, Jon Polito, Steve Buscemi, David Warrilow, Richard Portnow
"What Raising Arizona was to baby lust, Barton Fink is to writer's block -- a rapturously funny, strangely bittersweet, moderately horrifying and, yes, truly apt description of the condition and its symptoms... A deco-period film by Ethan and Joel Coen, Barton Fink is in fact their own creative solution to the writer's block that plagued them during the making of Miller's Crossing. A triumph for the offbeat, grimly funny brothers, it reveals in its mythic fashion the vagaries of the creative process that plague every artist." - Rita Kempley, The Washington Post, 1991
Selected by Alexei Balabanov, Sean Byrne, Patrice Leconte, Gabe Klinger, Philip Ridley.
542 → 581 → 529 → 529 → 538 → 470 → 490
Amazon  Metacritic  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)
 
Juliet of the Spirits
FEDERICO FELLINI (533)
Giulietta degli spiriti (original title)
1965 | 148m | Col | Italy | Comedy Drama, Marriage Drama
Giulietta Masina, Mario Pisu, Sandra Milo, Valentina Cortese, Valeska Gert, Jose-Luis de Villalonga, Friedrich von Ledebur, Caterina Boratto, Lou Gilbert, Sylva Koscina
"Made in 1965, around the time the term psychedelia was coined to describe a luminous Day-Glo vision of the world, Federico Fellini's phantasmagoric Juliet of the Spirits was the Italian master's first color film. Arriving when serious European filmmakers were discovering color, this gorgeous, sometimes garish immersion in a rainbow palette invites you to contemplate the symbolic vibration of every hue in its teeming, overcrowded canvas." - Stephen Holden, The New York Times, 2001
Selected by Mark L. Lester, Chris Berry, Danny Elfman, David Weissman, Donald Cammell.
705 → 766 → 726 → 574 → 630 → 533 → 491
Amazon  The Criterion Collection  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
The Thing from Another World
CHRISTIAN NYBY & HOWARD HAWKS (462)
• The Thing (alternative title)
1951 | 87m | BW | USA | Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Film
Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Robert Cornthwaite, James Arness, Douglas Spencer, Dewey Martin, James R. Young, Robert Nichols, William Self, Eduard Franz
"Though the nominal director is Christian Nyby (who was still toiling away at TV movies in the mid-80s), this 1951 science fiction classic is steeped in the personality of its producer, Howard Hawks. The special effects are largely limited to the rubber suit worn by James Arness in the title role, but the film has more frissons than most of today's mega-budget productions, simply because it has the grace to construct a meaningful situation and coherent characters." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by George A. Romero, Mark Jancovich, George Armitage, Gerard Lefort, Luc Moullet.
565 → 550 → 593 → 581 → 631 → 462 → 492
Amazon  Wikipedia  Time Out
 
 
 
 
 
493   494   495
I Am Cuba
MIKHEIL KALATOSOV (481)
• Soy Cuba (original title)
1964 | 85m | Col | USSR-Cuba | Drama, Propaganda Film
Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood, Jose Gallardo, Raul Garcia, Luz Maria Collazo, Jean Bouise, Alberto Morgan, Celia Rodriguez, Fausto Mirabal, Roberto Garcia York
"Inspired by the films of Sergei Eisenstein, and designed as an uplifting propaganda piece for Fidel Castro's Cuba - a cinematic poem to the cure-all of Communism - I Am Cuba may be one of the most stylistically vigorous films of all time. A joint Soviet-Cuban production, directed by Mikheil Kalatozov (The Cranes Are Flying) and originally released in 1964, I Am Cuba' is a delirious hybrid: an overheated, agitprop salute to the Cuban revolution and a mad, unbridled exercise in film technique." - Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle, 1995
Selected by Sukhdev Sandhu, Mike Leigh, Paolo Cherchi Usai, Eric Lavallee, George Clooney.
688 → 682 → 748 → 446 → 464 → 481 → 493
Amazon  Sight & Sound  Time Out
 
Where is the Friend's Home?
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI (466)
• Khane-ye doust kodjast? (original title); Where is My Friend's House? (alternative title)
1987 | 85m | Col | Iran | Drama, Childhood Drama
Babak Ahmed Poor, Ahmed Ahmed Poor, Kheda Barech Defai, Iran Outari, Ait Ansari, Sadika Taohidi, Biman Mouafi, Ali Djamali, Aziz Babai, Nadir Ghoulami
"Where Is the Friend's House?, one of Kiarostami's most popular films in Iran, is a miniature epic about a schoolboy trying to return a classmate's notebook... This is a sustained meditation on singular landscapes and the way ordinary people live in them; an obsessional quest that takes on the contours of a parable; a concentrated inquiry that raises more questions than it answers; and a comic as well as cosmic poem. It's about making discoveries and cherishing what's in the world—including things that we can't understand." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Werner Herzog, Tadao Sato, Lukas Moodysson, Christian Petzold, Thomas Schmitt.
646 → 513 → 483 → 501 → 429 → 466 → 494
Amazon  Cinepassion  Time Out
 
Underground
EMIR KUSTURICA (468)
• Bila jednom jedna zemlja (original title)
1995 | 192m | Col | France-Germany-Hungary | Political Satire, Black Comedy
Miki Manojlovic, Lazar Riztovski, Mirjana Jokovic, Slavko Stimac, Mirjana Karanovic, Srdjan Todorovic, Ernst Stotzner, Milena Pavlovic, Bata Stojkovic, Bora Todorovic
"Emir Kusturica's wild, sprawling Underground begins with drunken revelry, the kind that erupts frequently throughout the course of the film and accounts for a good deal of its three-hour running time. If Kusturica, who won the Palme d'Or at the 1995 Cannes International Film Festival for this feverish, whimsical allegory elevated by moments of brilliant clarity, appears to be overindulging a taste for celebration, he has good reason... Kusturica's central idea becomes a daringly blunt representation of political chicanery that fools an entire society." - Janet Maslin, The New York Times, 1997
Selected by Fernando Leon de Aranoa, Tim Robbins, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Hamid-Reza Sadr.
436 → 431 → 505 → 549 → 502 → 468 → 495
Amazon  Slant Magazine  The A.V. Club
 

         
496   497   498
I Walked with a Zombie
JACQUES TOURNEUR (487)
1943 | 69m | BW | USA | Horror, Occult Horror
Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison, Edith Barrett, Christine Gordon, Sir Lancelot, Darby Jones, James Bell, Theresa Harris, Jeni Le Gon
"The most elegant of Val Lewton's low budget horrors for RKO, an imaginative updating of Jane Eyre... But it is Tourneur's caressingly evocative direction, superbly backed by Roy Hunt's chiaroscuro images, that makes sheer magic of the film's brooding journey into fear by way of voodoo drums, gleaming moonlight, somnambulistic ladies in fluttering white, and dark, silent, undead sentries. " - Tom Milne, Time Out
Selected by Quim Casas, Michael Henry Wilson, Bertrand Tavernier, Jacques Goimard, Peter Korte.
344 → 352 → 378 → 488 → 508 → 487 → 496
Amazon  Wikipedia  Allmovie
 
I Was Born, But…
YASUJIRO OZU (486)
Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita keredo (original title)
1932 | 100m | BW | Japan | Comedy Drama, Coming-of-Age
Tatsuo Saito, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Hideo Sugawara, Tomio Aoki, Takeshi Sakamoto, Seiichi Kato, Shoichi Kojufita, Seiji Nishimura, Teruyo Hayami, Chishu Ryu
"From its opening image of a spinning wheel stuck in the mud to its succession of expertly composed and timed reaction shots, I Was Born, But... shows Ozu at the height of his subtle comic powers. There’s also a visual elegance to the storytelling, achieved through rigorous editing techniques. Ozu relies mostly on action and expression (intertitles are infrequent, as in much silent Ozu) to tell this alternately sly and sympathetic story." - Michael Koresky, The Criterion Collection, 2008
Selected by Georgia Brown, Chris Berry, Peter Rist, Kumar Shahani, Jose Luis Rebordinos.
366 → 398 → 460 → 429 → 482 → 486 → 497
Amazon  Midnight Eye  The Village Voice
 
Husbands
JOHN CASSAVETES (504)
1970 | 138m | Col | USA | Drama, Buddy Film
Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, Jenny Runacre, Jenny Lee Wright, Noelle Kao, Leola Harlow, Meta Shaw, John Kullers, Delores Delmar
"It's impossible to separate what makes John Cassavetes' Husbands exhilarating from what makes it exasperating. Following three suburban family men into the maw of a midlife crisis brought on by a mutual friend's untimely death, the movie is set at a fever pitch that at times approaches outright hysteria. Rarely has depression been so manic." - Sam Adams, Los Angeles Times, 2009
Selected by Wes Anderson, Jay DiPietro, Raoul Peck, Ulrich Seidl, Meir Schnitzer.
661 → 704 → 639 → 684 → 539 → 504 → 498
Amazon  The New Yorker  Pop Matters
 

         
499   500  

• To 501-100

Limelight
CHARLES CHAPLIN (469)
1952 | 145m | BW | USA | Comedy Drama, Melodrama
Charles Chaplin, Claire Bloom, Sydney Chaplin, Andre Eglevsky, Melissa Hayden, Nigel Bruce, Buster Keaton, Norman Lloyd, Charles Chaplin Jr., Wheeler Dryden
"Chaplin's final film before his exile in Europe is far and away his most personal: he recreates the London of his boyhood, and contemplates with supreme narcissism the onset of old age and the decline of his comic instinct... It's over-long, shapeless, overblown, and... a masterpiece. Few cinema artists have delved into their own lives and emotions with such ruthlessness and with such moving results." - Geoff Brown, Time Out
Selected by Gilbert Adair, Rashid Irani, Gene Moskowitz, Jos Oliver, Pascal Bonitzer.
259 → 269 → 403 → 370 → 439 → 469 → 499
Amazon  Wikipedia  Allmovie
 
Masculin Feminin
JEAN-LUC GODARD (472)
• Masculin féminin: 15 faits précis (original title)
1966 | 103m | BW | France-Sweden |  Urban Drama, Psychological Drama
Jean-Pierre Leaud, Chantal Goya, Catherine-Isabelle Duport, Marlene Jobert, Michel Debord, Eva-Britt Strandberg, Birger Malmsten, Francoise Hardy, Elas Leroy, Brigitte Bardot
"Masculin, Féminin was somewhat of a turning point for Godard, allowing the Novelle Vague auteur to address for the first time the current political climate of the world in one of his films. In many ways, this is the perfect Godard film—complex but accessible, snide but unpretentious, critical but sympathetic... The film is a provocative and deliriously funny examination of sexual politics in Paris during the height of the Vietnam War, and its genius is the way Godard seamlessly encodes his complex philosophy of the world into a deceptively simple love story" - Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine, 2003
Selected by Paul Schrader, Armond White, Manohla Dargis, Stephanie Zacharek, Robert Horton.
267 → 222 → 325 → 404 → 443 → 472 → 500
Amazon  The Criterion Collection (Adrian Martin)  The Village Voice (J. Hoberman)
 
 
     
     
     
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