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  The 1,000 Greatest Films The Top 400 (101-150)  
  • The 1,000 Greatest Films Home  • The Top 400 Films  • The Full List  • The Top 200 Directors  • PDF Companion  • Links  
  The Top 400 Films: • 1-25  • 26-50   • 51-75   • 76-100  • 101-150  • 151-200  • 201-250  • 251-300  • 301-350  • 351-400  
     
     
 
 101       102      103  
The Man with a Movie Camera
DZIGA VERTOV (97)
• Chelovek s kino-apparatom (original title)
1929 | 80m | BW | USSR | Avant-garde/Experimental, Documentary
Mikhail Kaufman
"Vertov's exhilarating and often hilarious exploration of the relations between cinema, actuality and history opened up all the issues Godard, the avant-gardes, and political film-makers have been wrestling with ever since. A truly radical and liberating work." - Peter Watts, Time Out 
Selected by Amy Taubin, Laura Mulvey, Robert Sklar, Susan Sontag, Barbara Hammer.
82 → 95 → 97 → 101
Amazon  The Onion A.V. Club  Images Journal
 
L'Âge d'or
LUIS BUÑUEL (90)
• The Golden Age (English title)
1930 | 63m | BW | France | Avant-garde/Experimental, Surrealist Film
Gaston Modot, Lya Lys, Max Ernst, Pierre Prevert, Caridad de Laberdesque, Lionel Salem, Madame Noizet, Jose Artigas, Jacques Brunius, Paul Eluard
"Luis Buñuel's first and most radical feature was banned for decades, and it continues to pack a jolt... Funny, blasphemous, sexy, strange, subtle, and evocative in its use of sound, it's also thoroughly Buñuelian, though without the bittersweet sense of resigned acceptance that characterizes some of his later works." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Dusan Makavajev, Peter Wollen, Aki Kaurismäki, Mrinal Sen, David Robinson.
72 → 89 → 90 → 102
Amazon  The Village Voice  Slant Magazine
 
Nosferatu
F.W. MURNAU (105)
• Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (original title)
1922 | 84m | BW | Germany | Horror, Gothic Film
Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schroeder, G.H. Schnell, Ruth Landshoff, John Gottowt, Gustav Botz, Max Nemetz, Wolfgang Heinz
"A masterpiece of the German silent cinema and easily the most effective version of Dracula on record. F.W. Murnau's 1922 film follows the Stoker novel fairly closely, although he neglected to purchase the screen rights--hence, the title change. But the key elements are all Murnau's own: the eerie intrusions of expressionist style on natural settings, the strong sexual subtext, and the daring use of fast-motion and negative photography." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Werner Herzog, Andrey Plakhov, Philip Kemp, Theo Angelopoulos, Gilberto Perez.
84 → 99 → 105 → 103
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 

         
 104      105      106   
Star Wars
GEORGE LUCAS (110)
• Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (alternative title)
1977 | 121m | Col | USA | Science Fiction, Space Adventure
Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Phil Brown
"Forget the phenomenon—it changed forever the way movies are marketed. Forget the endlessly hyped sequels... Remember the innocence (and technological inventiveness) of the film, the fun of the dialogue, the astonishment of the creatures we encountered, the propulsive dash of the editing." - Richard Schickel, Time
Selected by John Lasseter, Roger Corman, M. Night Shyamalan, Anurag Mehta, Scott Rosenberg.
104 → 110 → 110 → 104
Amazon  The Guardian (1977)  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
Annie Hall
WOODY ALLEN (116)
1977 | 94m | Col | USA | Romantic Comedy, Comedy of Manners
Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane, Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall, Janet Margolin, Colleen Dewhurst, Christopher Walken, Donald Symington
"Annie Hall, a comedy about urban love and incompatibility that finally establishes Woody as one of our most audacious filmmakers, as well as the only American filmmaker who is able to work seriously in the comic mode without being the least bit ponderous." - Vincent Canby, The New York Times, 1977
Selected by Edward Zwick, Rian Johnson, Digvijay Singh, Jean-Max Mejean, Jan-Olov Andersson.
129 → 133 → 116 → 105
Amazon  Film Reference  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 
His Girl Friday
HOWARD HAWKS (102)
1940 | 92m |  BW | USA | Screwball Comedy, Media Satire
Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart, Helen Mack, Porter Hall, Roscoe Karns, John Qualen, Ernest Truex, Billy Gilbert
"Hawks's great insight--taking the Hecht-MacArthur Front Page and making the Hildy Johnson character a woman--has been justly celebrated; it deepens the comedy in remarkable ways. Cary Grant's performance is truly virtuoso--stunning technique applied to the most challenging material." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by David Bordwell, Pauline Kael, Geoff Andrew, Quentin Tarantino, Mary Harron.
90 → 96 → 102 → 106
Amazon  Filmsite  Film Reference
 

         
 107      108      109  
Hiroshima mon amour
ALAIN RESNAIS (96)
• Hiroshima, mon amour (alternative title); Hiroshima, My Love (English title)
1959 | 91m | BW | France-Japan | Psychological Drama, Romantic Drama
Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada, Bernard Fresson, Stella Dassas, Pierre Barbaud
"It’s difficult to quantify the breadth of Hiroshima’s impact. It remains one of the most influential films in the short history of the medium, first of all because it liberated moviemakers from linear construction." - Kent Jones, The Criterion Collection
Selected by Jan Nemec, Eva Zaoralova, Jill Godmilow, Glenn Myrent, Russell Campbell.
109 → 103 → 96 → 107
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Pop Matters
 
Napoléon
ABEL GANCE (101)
1927 | 235m | BW | France | Epic, Historical Film
Albert Dieudonne, Gina Manes, Annabella, Vladimir Roudenko, Edmond Van Daele, Alexander Koubitzky, Antonin Artaud, Abel Gance, Nicolas Koline, Pierre Batcheff
"Despite its simplistic view of Napoleon himself, the film is completely vindicated by Gance's raving enthusiasm for his medium. All of the brilliant experiments with film language remain potent, from the montages of flash-frames to the bombastic poetry of the triptych finale; even the gags are still funny." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Selected by Christopher Frayling, David Robinson, Lewis Gilbert, Ronald Neame, Tom Luddy.
116 → 112 → 101 → 108
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Films de France
 
The Lady Eve
PRESTON STURGES (114)
1941 | 94m | BW | USA | Romantic Comedy, Sophisticated Comedy
Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, William Demarest, Eric Blore, Melville Cooper, Martha O'Driscoll, Janet Beecher, Robert Greig
"A movie like The Lady Eve is so hard to make that you can't make it at all unless you find a way to make it seem effortless. Preston Sturges does a kind of breathless balancing act here, involving romance, deception and physical comedy." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Selected by Edward Zwick, Pauline Kael, Karel Reisz, Richard Leacock, Jim McBride.
118 → 127 → 114 → 109
Amazon  Criterion Collection Essay  Senses of Cinema
 

          
 110      111      112  
King Kong
MERIAN C. COOPER & ERNEST B. SCHOEDSACK (115)
1933 | 103m | BW | USA | Adventure, Monster Film
Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot, Robert Armstrong, Frank Reicher, Noble Johnson, James Flavin, Sam Hardy, Steve Clemente, Victor Wong, Paul Porcasi
"If this glorious pile of horror-fantasy hokum has lost none of its power to move, excite and sadden, it is in no small measure due to the remarkable technical achievements of Willis O'Brien's animation work, and the superbly matched score of Max Steiner." - Wally Hammond, Time Out
Selected by Peter Jackson, Alex Cox, Stuart Gordon, Peter Keough, Elliott Stein.
96 → 106 → 115 → 110
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Filmsite
 
Gertrud
CARL DREYER (108)
1964 | 116m | BW | Denmark | Psychological Drama, Marriage Drama
Nina Pens Rode, Bendt Rothe, Ebbe Rode, Baard Owe, Axel Strobye, Karl Gustav Ahlefeldt, Vera Gebuhr, Lars Knutzon, Anna Malberg, Edouard Mielche
"Dreyer's last film was adapted from a 1919 play by Hjalmar Söderberg, but it remains one of the most purely cinematic discourses of the 1960s... The fact that it's only half-articulated makes it all the more shattering." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Selected by Gilbert Adair, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Bill Rothman, Phillip Lopate, Tag Gallagher.
101 → 97 → 108 → 111
Amazon  Film Reference  Slant Magazine
 
Stalker
ANDREI TARKOVSKY (125)
1979 | 160m | Col-BW | Russia | Science Fiction, Psychological Sci-Fi
Aleksandr Kajdanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Alisa Frejndlikh, Natasha Abramova, Ye. Kostin, R. Rendi, F. Yurma
"Against the fractured density of Mirror, Stalker sets a form of absolute linear simplicity... As always, Tarkovsky conjures images like you've never seen before; and as a journey to the heart of darkness, it's a good deal more persuasive than Coppola's." - Chris Peachment, Time Out
Selected by Alex Proyas, Michael Haneke, Dina Iordanova, Joel Schumacher, Alexei Balabanov.
119 → 117 → 125 → 112
Amazon  The Guardian  Slant Magazine
 

         
 113       114       115  
Los Olvidados
LUIS BUÑUEL (109)
• The Young and the Damned (English title)
1950 | 88m | BW | Mexico | Drama, Juvenile Delinquency Film
Alfonso Mejia, Roberto Cobo, Stella Inda, Miguel Inclan, Alma Delia Fuentes, Jesus Navarro, Francisco Jambrina, Hector Portillo, Salvador Quiros, Victor Manuel Mendoza
"This low-budget account of Mexico City street kids, inspired by actual cases as well as Buñuel's impressions of his new country, is a masterpiece of social surrealism and the founding work of third-world barrio horror." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice, 2005
Selected by Guillermo del Toro, Paul Verhoeven, Richard Linklater, Robert Sklar, Leonardo Garcia Tsao.
113 → 109 → 109 → 113
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Film Reference
 
Manhattan
WOODY ALLEN (113)
1979 | 96m | BW | USA | Comedy Drama, Romantic Comedy
Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep, Anne Byrne, Karen Ludwig, Michael O'Donoghue, Victor Truro, Tisa Farrow
"I had forgotten what perfect pitch Woody Allen brought to ''Manhattan''--how its tone and timing slip so gracefully between comedy and romance... Seeing it again I realize it's more subtle, more complex, and not about love, but loss." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2001
Selected by Greg Mottola, Sophie Barthes, José Luis Garci, Patrice Leconte, Mark Borchardt.
152 → 114 → 113 → 114
Amazon  Seattle Weekly (J. Hoberman)  metacritic
 
Sherlock Jr.
BUSTER KEATON (100)
• Sherlock Junior (alternate spelling)
1924 | 45m | BW | USA | Comedy, Fantasy
Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Erwin Connelly, Ward Crane, Jane Connelly, George Davis, Doris Deane, Ruth Holly, Kewpie Morgan
"The impeccable comedian directs himself in an impeccable silent comedy... Is this, as some critics have argued, an example of primitive American surrealism? Sure. But let's not get fancy about it. It is more significantly, a great example of American minimalism. The whole thing is only 45 minutes long, not a second of which is wasted. In an age when most comedies are all windup and no punch, this is the most treasurable of virtues " - Richard Schickel, Time, 2005
Selected by Carrie Rickey, Terry Jones, Jean-Louis Leutrat, James Mangold, Georgia Brown.
69 → 82 → 100 → 115
Amazon  Film Reference  All-Movie Guide
 

         
 116      117      118    
Ran
AKIRA KUROSAWA (121)
1985 | 161m | Col | France-Japan | Historical Epic, Samurai Film
Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu, Mieko Harada, Yoshiko Miyazaki, Takashi Nomura, Hisashi Igawa, Peter, Masayuki Yui
"Ran is slightly marred by some too obvious straining toward masterpiece status, yet it's a stunning achievement in epic cinema. Working on a large scale seems to bring out the best in Kurosawa's essentially formal talents." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by James Gray, Sidney Lumet, Masahiro Shinoda, Clara Law, Digvijay Singh.
125 → 130 → 121 → 116
Amazon  Images Journal  Criterion Collection Essay
 
The Exterminating Angel
LUIS BUÑUEL (120)
• El Ángel exterminador (original title)
1962 | 95m | BW | Mexico | Comedy Drama, Satire
Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal, Lucy Gallardo, Claudio Brook, Tito Junco, Bertha Moss, Jacqueline Andere, Jose Baviera, Augusto Benedico, Luis Beristain
"A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and inexplicably find themselves unable to leave in Luis Buñuel’s daring masterpiece The Exterminating Angel (El ángel exterminador). Made just one year after his international sensation Viridiana, this film, full of eerie, comic absurdity, furthers Buñuel’s wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes." - The Criterion Collection
Selected by Michael Haneke, Alex Cox, Mary Harron, Rajko Grlic, Terry Gilliam.
139 → 124 → 120 → 117
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Strictly Film School
 
Paisan
ROBERTO ROSSELLINI (133)
• Paisà (original title)
1946 | 120m | BW | Italy | Drama, War Drama
Maria Michi, Gar Moore, Carmela Sazio, Robert Van Loon, Benjamin Emmanuel, Harold Wagner, Dotts Johnson, Harriet Medin, William Tubbs, Dale Edmonds
"Roberto Rossellini's six-part film about the liberation of Italy was released in 1946... The episodes all seem to have an anecdotal triteness... but each acquires a wholly unexpected naturalness and depth of feeling from Rossellini's refusal to hype the anecdotes with conventional dramatic rhetoric." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Irene Bignardi, Robert Sklar, Amos Gitai, Klaus Eder, Joan Mellen.
141 → 139 → 133 → 118
Amazon  The New York Times (Bosley Crowther)  Film Reference
 

         
 119      120       121   
Broken Blossoms
D.W. GRIFFITH (112)
• Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (alternative title)
1919 | 95m | BW | USA | Melodrama, Romantic Drama
Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp, Arthur Howard, Edward Peil Sr., George Andre Beranger, Norman Selby, Ernest Butterworth, Fred Hamer, Wilbur Higby
"Griffith in 1919 was the unchallenged king of serious American movies (only C.B. DeMille rivaled him in fame), and "Broken Blossoms" was seen as brave and controversial. What remains today is the artistry of the production, the ethereal quality of Lillian Gish, the broad appeal of the melodrama, and the atmosphere of the elaborate sets." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Selected by Jim Jarmusch, Aki Kaurismäki, Richard Brody, Peter Keough, Carlos Garcia Brusco.
126 → 100 → 112 → 119
Amazon  Film Reference  Slant Magazine
 
The Treasure of the Sierre Madre
JOHN HUSTON (111)
1948 | 124m | BW | USA | Drama, Adventure Drama
Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett, Barton MacLane, Alfonso Bedoya, John Huston, Arturo Soto Rangel, Manuel Donde, Jose Torvay
"John Huston produced a number of great films, but this tale of greed, fear, and murder in Mexico is undoubtedly his finest, a towering masterpiece with Humphrey Bogart simply wonderful as the inimitable Fred C. Dobbs." - Baseline
Selected by Sam Raimi, Rian Johnson, Dennis Hopper, John Sayles, Harold Becker.
102 → 107 → 111 → 120
Amazon  Roger Ebert’s Great Movies  Filmsite
 
Out of the Past
JACQUES TOURNEUR (117)
• Build My Gallows High (UK title)
1947 | 97m | BW | USA | Crime, Film Noir
Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb, Steve Brodie, Virginia Huston, Paul Valentine, Dickie Moore, Ken Niles
"Out of the Past, adapted by Geoffrey Homes (a pseudonym for the left-wing writer Daniel Mainwaring) from his 1946 pulp novel Build My Gallows High, under which title it was released in Britain, is Jacques Tourneur's noir classic. The script is dense, subtly shaped, and bristles with stylised, often witty hard-boiled dialogue and voice-over narration... The superb photography is by Nicholas Musuraca, an RKO stalwart specialising in noir." - Philip French, The Observer, 2007
Selected by Alex Gibney, Nick James, John Baldessari, David Rooney, Martin McLoone.
155 → 125 → 117 → 121
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Film Reference
See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films
 

         
 122      123      124  
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
STEVEN SPIELBERG (135)
1982 | 115m | Col | USA | Science Fiction, Children's Fantasy
Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, K.C. Martel, Sean Frye, Tom Howell, Erika Eleniak, David O'Dell
"E.T. is about the wonders beyond our gaze, but it also digs deep into the realities of childhood pain as a framework for its fantasy. Spielberg's first real masterpiece, it deserved all the hearts it won - and wins still." - Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune, 2002
Selected by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Ronald Neame, Richard Lester, Roger Michell, Alejandro Amenábar.
144 → 136 → 135 → 122
Amazon  Time's All-Time 100 Movies  Film Reference
 
Umberto D.
VITTORIO DE SICA (129)
1952 | 89m | BW | Italy | Drama, Urban Drama
Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari, Alberto Albani Barbieri, Memmo Carotenuto, Elena Rea, Ileana Simova, Lamberto Maggiorani
"One of Italian Neorealism’s last and deepest sighs... Cesare Zavattini, the writer who defined Neorealism as much as its directors did, never wrote more simply and directly and De Sica realizes his work with perfect clarity." - Richard Schickel, Time
Selected by Bryan Forbes, Tim Lucas, James Mangold, Michael Sragow, Nina Menkes.
122 → 131 → 129 → 123
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Criterion Collection Essay
 
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
ROBERT ALTMAN (169)
1971 | 121m | Col | USA | Drama, Revisionist Western
Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, John Schuck, Keith Carradine, Hugh Millais, Shelley Duvall, Michael Murphy, William Devane, Bert Remsen
"Like all things that are beautiful and unalterably sad, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, by its final scene -- the hired guns tracking McCabe through a quiet, persistent blizzard -- achieves a deep sense of peace." - Charles Taylor, Salon Magazine, 1997
Selected by A.O. Scott, Tim Robbins, Alan Rudolph, Gore Verbinski, Joan Mellen.
124 → 168 → 169 → 124
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 

         
 125      126       127  
Vivre sa vie
JEAN-LUC GODARD (119)
• My Life to Live (English title); Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (original title)
1963 | 85m | BW | France | Psychological Drama, Urban Drama
Anna Karina, Saddy Rebbot, Andre S. Labarthe, Guylaine Schlumberger, Brice Parain, Peter Kassovitz, Gerard Hoffman, Monique Messine, Paul Pavel, Dimitri Dineff
"Only Godard could have made this film and at the time it seemed like a masterpiece. It remains so now, telling us more, sometimes by the simple device of telling us less, than any other film about what the French used to call 'the life'." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 2002
Selected by Yvette Biro, Ann Hui, Peter Wollen, Georgia Brown, Harun Farocki.
115 → 108 → 119 → 125
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Film Reference
 
Ashes and Diamonds
ANDRZEJ WAJDA (118)
• Popiól i diament (original title)
1958 | 96m | BW | Poland | Political Drama, War Drama
Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska, Adam Pawlikowski, Waclaw Zastrzezynski, Bogumil Kobiela, Jan Ciecierski, Stanislaw Milski, Zbigniew Skowronski, Barbara Krafftowna, Irena Orzecka
"The last of Wajda's unplanned trilogy about the legacy of World War II on his generation, following A Generation (1954) and Kanal (1956), Ashes and Diamonds is also the most flamboyant, and features the iconic figure of Zbigniew Cybulski, frequently cited as the 'Polish James Dean', who died in an accident in 1967." - David Thompson, Time Out
Selected by István Szabó, Dusan Makavejev, Roy Andersson, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Pawil Pawlikowski.
121 → 135 → 118 → 126
Amazon  Criterion Collection Essay  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films
 
Mean Streets
MARTIN SCORSESE (146)
1973 | 110m | Col | USA | Urban Drama, Crime Drama
Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus, Cesare Danova, Robert Carradine, David Carradine, Victor Argo, George Memmoli
"Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets isn't so much a gangster movie as a perceptive, sympathetic, finally tragic story about how it is to grow up in a gangster environment. Its characters (like Scorsese himself) have grown up in New York's Little Italy, and they understand everything about that small slice of human society except how to survive in it." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1973
Selected by Kathryn Bigelow, Owen Gleiberman, John Woo, Antonia Bird, Jana Bokova.
132 → 149 → 146 → 127
Amazon  Film Reference  Los Angeles Times
 

          
 128      129       130  
Sullivan's Travels
PRESTON STURGES (171)
1941 | 91m | BW | USA | Comedy, Satire
Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Porter Hall, Robert Greig, Eric Blore, Byron Foulger, Maggie Hayes
"The sweetest, most generous-hearted satire of the Hollywood film industry the town has ever produced, Sullivan’s Travels was the fourth of the eight films Preston Sturges made during his astonishingly prolific streak between 1940 and 1944." - Todd McCarthy, Criterion Collection
Selected by A.O. Scott, John Lasseter, Todd Phillips, Daniel Talbot, Edna Fainaru.
163 → 165 → 171 → 128
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Film Reference
 
The Grapes of Wrath
JOHN FORD (127)
1940 | 129m | BW | USA | Rural Drama, Americana
Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin, Dorris Bowdon, Russell Simpson, John Qualen, O.Z. Whitehead, Eddie Quillan, Zeffie Tilbury
"Ford, Nichols, Fonda and the supporting cast translated Steinbeck's novel to the screen with proper fidelity, the distortions far outweighed by the spectacular rightness of Fonda's casting and the remarkable cinematography of Gregg Toland... The Grapes of Wrath abounds with examples of Ford's skill in visual language." - John Baxter, Film Reference
Selected by Dennis Hopper, Roger Corman, Guy Hamilton, Harold Becker, Sidney Lumet.
134 → 119 → 127 → 129
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  DVD Savant Review
 
Pulp Fiction
QUENTIN TARANTINO (151)
1994 | 154m | Col | USA | Crime Comedy, Ensemble Film
John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Bruce Willis, Rosanna Arquette, Amanda Plummer, Eric Stoltz, Steve Buscemi
"A spectacularly entertaining piece of pop culture, Pulp Fiction is the American Graffiti of violent crime pictures... On any number of important levels, Pulp Fiction is a startling, massive success." - Todd McCarthy, Variety, 1994
Selected by Alexei Balabanov, Susan Seidelman, Klaus Lemke, Anurag Mehta, Hulya Ucansu.
147 → 175 → 151 → 130
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  San Francisco Chronicle
 

         
 131        132      133   
Dekalog
KRSZYSTOF KIESLOWSKI (132)
• Decalogue, The (USA title)
1988 | 550m | Col | Poland | Drama, Psychological Drama
Miroslaw Baka, Henryk Baranowski, Artur Barcis, Aleksander Bardini, Maja Barelkowska, Adrianna Biedrzynska, Henryk Bista, Ewa Blaszczyk, Bozena Dykiel, Janusz Gajos
"The Dekalog was the last film that Krzysztof Kieslowski would set entirely in his native Poland and, less flashy in its metaphysics than his subsequent French co-pros, it remains his masterpiece—a sardonic riff on the foundation laws that govern the Judeo-Christian cosmos." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Selected by David Denby, Derek Malcolm, Roger Ebert, Dennis Lim, Mira Nair.
94 → 111 → 132 → 131
Amazon  Strictly Film School  The Onion A.V. Club
 
The Red Shoes
MICHAEL POWELL & EMERIC PRESSBURGER (128)
1948 | 133m | Col | UK | Romantic Drama, Musical Drama
Anton Walbrook, Moira Shearer, Marius Goring, Leonide Massine, Robert Helpmann, Albert Basserman, Esmond Knight, Ludmilla Tcherina, Frederick Ashton, Jean Short
"The most popular movie ever made about the ballet and one of the most enigmatic movies about anything... The film is voluptuous in its beauty and passionate in its storytelling. You don't watch it, you bathe in it." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2005
Selected by Ken Russell, David Ehrenstein, Martin Scorsese, Sam Mendes, Mika Kaurismäki.
140 → 118 → 128 → 132
Amazon  Screen Online  Criterion Collection Essay (Ian Christie)
 
The Birth of a Nation
D.W. GRIFFITH (123)
• The Clansman (première title)
1915 | 187m | BW | USA | Epic, Historical Film
Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Mary Alden, Ralph Lewis, George Siegmann, Walter Long, Robert Harron, Raoul Walsh
"The Birth of a Nation holds the watcher as in a vice because it shows such ingenuity in integrating a very intimate story within the framework of so large an historical canvass. However much you object to its actual interpretation of history, you have to admit this." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian
Selected by John Boorman, Terry Gilliam, Lawrence Kardish, Linda Williams, Matt Zoller Seitz.
111 → 128 → 123 → 133
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Variety (1915)
 

         
 134      135      136   
A Man Escaped
ROBERT BRESSON (130)
• Un Condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (original title)
1956 | 102m | BW | France | Drama, Prison Film
Francois Leterrrier, Charles LeClainche, Maurice Beerblock, Roland Monod, Jacques Ertaud, Roger Treherne, Jean-Paul Delhumeau, Jean-Philippe Delamarre, Cesar Gattegno, Jacques Oerlemans
"Based on a French lieutenant's account of his 1942 escape from a Gestapo fortress in Lyon, this stately yet uncommonly gripping 1956 feature is my choice as the greatest achievement of Robert Bresson, one of the cinema's foremost artists." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by David Ehrenstein, Fernando Martin Pena, Jan Nemec, Olivier Assayas, Georgia Brown.
103 → 116 → 130 → 134
Amazon  Masters of Cinema  Strictly Film School
 
La Jetée
CHRIS MARKER (158)
• The Pier (English title); The Jetty (alternative title)
1962 | 29m | BW | France | Science Fiction, Avant-garde/Experimental
Helene Chatelain, Davos Hanich, Jacques Ledoux, Jean Negroni, Andre Heinrich, Jacques Branchu, Pierre Joffroy, Etienne Becker, Ligia Branice, William Klein
"One of the best of all SF films is this haunting, apocalyptic 27-minute French short by the great Chris Marker  about a man sent into the future--a story that is told almost exclusively in still frames." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Tim Lucas, Dennis Lim, Mira Nair, Glenn Myrent, Pier Marton.
178 → 169 → 158 → 135
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Criterion Collection Essay
 
Earth
ALEXANDER DOVZHENKO (134)
• Zemlya (original title)
1930 | 90m | BW | Russia | Drama, Rural Drama
Semyon Svashenko, Stepan Shkurat, Nikolai Nademsky, Yuliya Solntseva, Yelena Maksimova, I. Franko, Pyotr Masokha, V. Mikhajlov, Pavel Petrik, P. Umanets
"The astonishingly beautiful Earth is unlike anything else in movies. Drafted to make a film on rural collectivization, Dovzhenko produced a myth presenting the creation of the kolkhoz as a natural phenomenon, part of a cosmic cycle of birth and death." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice, 2002
Selected by Dusan Makavejev, Karel Reisz, Gilles Jacob, Donald Richie, Gilberto Perez.
110 → 121 → 134 → 136
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Film Reference
 

         
 137      138      139  
The Shining
STANLEY KUBRICK (148)
1980 | 142m | Col | USA | Horror, Haunted House Film
Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson, Philip Stone, Joseph Turkel, Anne Jackson, David Baxt, Lia Beldam
"Kubrick, akin to his trippy treatment of the sci-fi genre, was elevating horror to a different plane, removing its camp wiggeries and bogeymen to infuriate and bedazzle with sinewy suggestion and sumptuous, awe-inspiring technique. Technically, there is no better film in the genre.... Ostensibly a haunted house story, it manages to traverse a complex world of incipient madness, spectral murder and supernatural visions... and also makes you jump." - Ian Nathan, Empire
Selected by Lee Unkrich, Jonathan Romney, Kim Newman, Lizzie Francke, Fred Durst.
201 → 141 → 148 → 137
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
A Matter of Life and Death
MICHAEL POWELL & EMERIC PRESSBURGER (126)
• Stairway to Heaven (alternative title)
1946 | 104m | Col | UK | Romantic Fantasy, Heaven-Can-Wait Fantasies
David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Robert Coote, Marius Goring, Raymond Massey, Abraham Sofaer, Kathleen Byron, Richard Attenborough, Bonar Colleano
"Of all the films Powell and Pressburger made together, A Matter of Life and Death was Powell's favorite. Playful and profound, witty and carefully crafted, it distills the greatest of Powell's artistic gifts and celebrates, with an occasional self-conscious wink, the possibilities of film. " - Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle, 1995
Selected by David Siegel, Scott McGehee, Ian Christie, Graham Fuller, Simon Louvish.
181 → 134 → 126 → 138
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Film Reference
 
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
STEVEN SPIELBERG (226)
1977 | 135m | Col | USA | Science Fiction, Adventure Drama
Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban, Warren Kemmerling, Cary Guffey, J. Patrick McNamara, Roberts Blossom, Philip Dodds
"Mr. Spielberg is at his best as a movie craftsman, someone who seems to know by instinct (and after millions of hours of movie-watching) how best to put together any two pieces of film for maximum effect... Close Encounters is most stunning when it is dealing in visual and aural sensations that might be described as being in the seventies Disco Style." - Vincent Canby, The New York Times
Selected by Richard Kelly, Joe Wright, Roland Emmerich, Andrew Stanton, Bryan Singer.
225 → 218 → 226 → 139
Amazon  Reel Views  Film Reference
 

         
 140      141       142   
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
MICHAEL POWELL & EMERIC PRESSBURGER (147)
1943 | 163m | Col | UK | Romantic Drama, Period Film
Roger Livesey, Anton Walbrook, Deborah Kerr, Roland Culver, James McKechnie, John Laurie, Ursula Jeans, David Hutcheson, Albert Lieven, Arthur Wontner
"With its imaginative and flamboyant use of Technicolor and its rich period detail in sets, costumes and manners, its outstanding performances and the strong emotional impact of the story, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a masterpiece in the full sense of the word. A film that enriches, enlightens and ennobles, and does this with intelligence, wit, style, compassion and beauty." - Ronald Haver, The Criterion Collection, 2002
Selected by Errol Morris, Kevin MacDonald, Mike Hodges, Jim McBride, Helena Ylanen.
192 → 160 → 147 → 140
Amazon  Screen Online  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
The Best Years of Our Lives
WILLIAM WYLER (122)
1946 | 172m | BW | USA | Drama, Family Drama
Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, Harold Russell, Hoagy Carmichael, Cathy O'Donnell, Gladys George, Roman Bohnen
"I'd call this the best American movie about returning soldiers I've ever seen--the most moving and the most deeply felt. It bears witness to its times and contemporaries like few other Hollywood features." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader 
Selected by Jan Nemec, Sidney Lumet, Cameron Crowe, Scott McGehee, Billy Wilder.
114 → 122 → 122 → 141
Amazon  Film Reference  Reel Views
 
Chimes at Midnight
ORSON WELLES (124)
• Campanadas a medianoche (Spanish title); Falstaff (alternative title)
1966 | 115m | BW | Spain-Switzerland | Drama, Tragi-comedy
Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, Marina Vlady, Walter Chiari, Norman Rodway, Alan Webb, Fernando Rey
"Infused with a politically acute nostalgia for Merrie England, this elegiac tragi-comedy comes over as uncompromisingly modern entertainment, from its playful ruptures of traditional film grammar to its characterisation of Falstaff as hero at the crossroads of history... Welles waddles through the foreground with an eye on his own problems of patronage, while behind the camera he conjures a dark masterpiece, shot through with slapstick and sorrow. Magic. " - Paul Taylor, Time Out
Selected by Todd McCarthy, Tony Rayns, Bruce Beresford, Neil Hunter, Brian Gilbert.
105 → 120 → 124 → 142
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Senses of Cinema
 

         
 143       144      145  
Don't Look Now
NICOLAS ROEG (136)
1973 | 110m | Col | UK | Psychological Thriller, Supernatural Thriller
Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie, Hilary Mason, Clelia Matania, Massimo Serato, Renato Scarpa, Giorgio Trestini, Leopoldo Trieste, David Tree, Ann Rye
"Nicolas Roeg's 1973 film remains one of the great horror masterpieces, working not with fright, which is easy, but with dread, grief and apprehension. Few films so successfully put us inside the mind of a man who is trying to reason his way free from mounting terror." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2002
Selected by Edgar Wright, Marc Forster, Iain Softley, Mark Kermode, Scott Hicks.
174 → 163 → 136 → 143
Amazon  Screen Online  San Francisco Chronicle
 
Bonnie and Clyde
ARTHUR PENN (137)
1967 | 111m | Col | USA | Gangster Film, Crime Drama
Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor, Gene Wilder, Evans Evans, James Stiver
"Bonnie and Clyde is a milestone in the history of American movies, a work of truth and brilliance. It is also pitilessly cruel, filled with sympathy, nauseating, funny, heartbreaking, and astonishingly beautiful. If it does not seem that those words should be strung together, perhaps that is because movies do not very often reflect the full range of human life." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1967
Selected by Mike Figgis, Jeff Krulik, Michael Dwyer, Helena Ylanen, Wesley Strick.
136 → 146 → 137 → 144
Amazon  Film Reference  Bright Lights Film Journal
 
The Philadelphia Story
GEORGE CUKOR (142)
1940 | 112m | BW | USA | Screwball Comedy, Romantic Comedy
Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, Virginia Weidler, Henry Daniell, John Halliday, Mary Nash
"Philip Barry's witty comedy of manners about a spoiled rich girl (Katharine Hepburn) who longs for some genuine romance... It checks in a little below Cukor's 1938 Grant-Hepburn-Barry outing, Holiday, a more tender and less cluttered variation on the same theme, but second best in this league is still something special." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Bill Rothman, Owen Gleiberman, Tom Hunsinger, Michael Caton-Jones, Camille Paglia.
168 → 153 → 142 → 145
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  Film Reference
 

         
 146       147       148  
Black Narcissus
MICHAEL POWELL & EMERIC PRESSBURGER (138)
1946 | 99m | Col | UK | Melodrama, Religious Drama
Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar, Flora Robson, Jean Simmons, Kathleen Byron, Jenny Laird, Esmond Knight, Judith Furse, May Hallatt
"Run, don't walk to see this 1946 classic from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger... The co-directors created from Rumer Godden's novel an extraordinary melodrama of repressed love and Forsterian Englishness - or rather Irishness - coming unglued in the vertiginous landscape of South Asia." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 2005
Selected by Nick James, Philip Strick, Peter Bradshaw, James Mangold, Andrew Worsdale.
123 → 123 → 138 → 146
Amazon  Screen Online  Criterion Collection Essay
 
Brief Encounter
DAVID LEAN (145)
1945 | 85m | BW | UK | Drama, Romance
Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Cyril Raymond, Joyce Carey, Valentine Dyall, Everley Gregg, Margaret Barton, Dennis Harkin, Marjorie Mars
"No matter how often the film is mocked and parodied, most notably by Mike Nichols and Elaine May, or sneered at by Pauline Kael ("There is not a breath of air in it") it remains extraordinarily moving. " - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 1999
Selected by Joe Wright, Andy Medhurst, Ronald Neame, Andrew Bergman, Joseph Strick.
137 → 143 → 145 → 147
Amazon  Images Journal  Criterion Collection Essay
 
Once Upon a Time in America
SERGIO LEONE (143)
1984 | 227m | Col | USA | Crime, Gangster Film
Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams, Tuesday Weld, Burt Young, Joe Pesci, Danny Aiello, William Forsythe, James Hayden
"While Leone's vision still has a magnificent sweep, the film finally subsides to an emotional core that is sombre, even elegiac, and which centres on a man who is bent and broken by time, and finally left with nothing but an impotent sadness." - Chris Peachment, Time Out
Selected by Adrian Martin, Sydney Pollack, Tony Rayns, Mike Figgis, Marc Cerisuelo.
167 → 154 → 143 → 148
Amazon  Film Reference  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 

         
 149      150      
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
MILOS FORMAN (131)
1975 | 133m | Col | USA | Comedy Drama, Psychological Drama
Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Brad Dourif, Will Sampson, Sydney Lassick, Christopher Lloyd, Danny De Vito, Scatman Crothers, Michael Berryman
"Although the picture has not aged as well as some of its contemporaries, its themes remain germane, the story has lost none of its punch, and the performances retain their freshness. Viewed 30 years after its release, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest remains a very good motion picture, although one that perhaps just misses the pinnacle of greatness where its reputation suggests it resides." - James Berardinelli, Reel Views, 2006
Selected by Alan Parker, Pawil Pawlikowski, M. Night Shyamalan, Daniil Dondurei, Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
160 → 144 → 131 → 149
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  metacritic
 
Red River
HOWARD HAWKS (139)
1948 | 133m | BW | USA | Western, Epic Western
John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan, Joanne Dru, Coleen Gray, John Ireland, Noah Beery Jr., Paul Fix, Harry Carey Jr., Harry Carey
"This opus is on the way towards being one of the best cow-boy pictures ever made. And even despite a big let-down, which fortunately comes near the end, it stands sixteen hands above the level of routine horse opera these days." - Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1948
Selected by Wes Craven, Fred Camper, D.A. Pennebaker, Andy Medhurst, Jim McBride.
127 → 137 → 139 → 150
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 

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