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  The 1,000 Greatest Films The Top 250 (151-200)  
  • The 1,000 Greatest Films Home  • The Top 250 Films  • The Top 100 Directors  • Full List by Ranking  • Full List by Title  • Full List by Director  • Full List by Year  • Full List by Country • Alternative Titles  
  The Top 250 Films: • 1-25  • 26-50   • 51-75   • 76-100  • 101-150  • 151-200  • 201-250  
     
     
 
 151    152    153
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
LUIS BUÑUEL (120)
1972 | 100m | Col | France | Satire, Black Comedy
"In addition to being extraordinarily funny and perfectly acted, The Discreet Charm moves with the breathtaking speed and self-assurance that only a man of Buñuel's experience can achieve without resorting to awkward ellipsis." - Vincent Canby, The New York Times, 1972
Selected by Denys Arcand, Karel Reisz, John Schlesinger, John Carpenter, Federico Fellini.
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Criterion Collection Essay
 
Un Chien andalou
LUIS BUÑUEL (193)
1928 | 20m | BW | France | Surrealist Film, Avant-garde/Experimental
"Neither the title (An Andalusian Dog) nor anything else in the film was intended to make sense. It remains the most famous short film ever made, and anyone halfway interested in the cinema sees it sooner or later, usually several times." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2000
Selected by Ian Christie, Raymond Durgnat, Esteve Riambau, Stefan Grissemann, Peter Tscherkassky.
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Slant Magazine
 
The Philadelphia Story
GEORGE CUKOR (168)
1940 | 112m | BW | USA | Screwball Comedy, Romantic Comedy
"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, Michael Caton-Jones, Patrice Leconte, Ed Buscombe.
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  Film Reference
          
 154    155    156
Once Upon a Time in America
SERGIO LEONE (167)
1984 | 227m | Col | USA | Crime, Gangster Film
"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, Andrew Worsdale.
Amazon  Film Reference  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 
Sweet Smell of Success
ALEXANDER MACKENDRICK (142)
1957 | 96m | BW | USA | Drama, Media Satire
"Sweet Smell, which could have been offal, is raised to considerable dramatic heights by intense acting, taut direction, superb camera work and, above all, by its whiplash dialogue." - Time, 1957
Selected by Terence Davies, Scott McGehee, Philip Kemp, James Mangold, Julien Temple.
Amazon  Images Journal  Film Reference
See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films
 
The Mother and the Whore
JEAN EUSTACHE (221)
1973 | 210m | BW | France | Psychological Drama, Urban Drama
"The Mother and the Whore has the energy and quick, almost surreptitious illumination of the best improvised work. The low-contrast black and white photography gives the film a cool, astringent look that cuts nicely against the gathering force of the script." - Jay Cocks, Time, 1974
Selected by Richard Linklater, Mark Cousins, John Waters, Quim Casas, Mark Peranson.
Amazon  Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum)  Strictly Film School
         
 157    158    159
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI (138)
1964 | 135m | BW | France-Italy | Drama, Religious Drama
"Pasolini's is one of the most effective films on a religious theme I have ever seen, perhaps because it was made by a nonbeliever who did not preach, glorify, underline, sentimentalize or romanticize his famous story, but tried his best to simply record it." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004
Selected by Scott Hicks, Jonathan Glazer, Mike Hodges, Ulrich Seidl, Rajko Grlic.
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  The New York Times
 
Kind Hearts and Coronets
ROBERT HAMER (146)
1949 | 104m | BW | UK | Black Comedy, Crime Comedy
"This is one of the few works of dramatic literature, and the only film I know, whose epigrammatic wit and wickedness bear comparison to Oscar Wilde's. In a word, perfection!" - Richard Corliss, Time
Selected by Terry Jones, Mike Newell, Peter Bradshaw, Terence Davies, Whit Stillman.
Amazon  Screen Online  Criterion Collection Essay
 
The Band Wagon
VINCENTE MINNELLI (210)
1953 | 112m | Col | USA | Musical Comedy, Backstage Musical
"The whole point about The Band Wagon, and one which sometimes makes people underrate it, was the way everything seems to mesh so seamlessly--almost effortlessly, in fact. That was due to Minnelli, whose flair and imagination... was matched by his almost perfect control." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 1999
Selected by D.A. Pennebaker, Ed Buscombe, Julien Temple, David Ansen, Al Clark.
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Senses of Cinema
          
 160    161    162
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
MICHAEL POWELL & EMERIC PRESSBURGER (192)
1943 | 163m | Col | UK | Romantic Drama, Period Film
"Colonel Blimp is as unmistakably a British product as Yorkshire pudding and, like the latter, it has a delectable savor all its own." - Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1945
Selected by Kevin MacDonald, Mike Hodges, Derek Jarman, Donna Bowman, Jim McBride.
Amazon  Screen Online  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
Celine and Julie Go Boating
JACQUES RIVETTE (135)
1974 | 192m | Col | France | Surrealist Film, Avant-garde/Experimental
"This epic is best appreciated by surrendering to its flow of mesmerising images and ideas... A charming and beautifully planned drama that resolves nothing - and doesn't need to." - David Parkinson, Empire Magazine
Selected by Ty Burr, Michael Atkinson, Dennis Lim, Monte Hellman, Tom Milne.
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Slant Magazine
 
Nights of Cabiria
FEDERICO FELLINI (156)
1957 | 110m | BW | Italy-France | Melodrama, Tragi-comedy
"In Nights of Cabiria, Fellini weighs the cost of both isolation and connection, but it's such a graceful picture that his technique comes off as anything but ponderous -- it's more like a graceful soft-shoe, a muted shuffle on a sandy floor." - Stephanie Zacharek, Salon Magazine
Selected by Hubert Cornfield, Paul Mazursky, Vincent Canby, Frederick Wiseman, Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
         
 163    164    165
Don't Look Now
NICOLAS ROEG (174)
1973 | 110m | Col | UK | Psychological Thriller, Supernatural Thriller
"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 Mark Kermode, Scott Hicks, Antonia Bird, Neil Young (critic), Michael Koresky.
Amazon  Screen Online  San Francisco Chronicle
 
The Palm Beach Story
PRESTON STURGES (175)
1942 | 90m | BW | USA | Screwball Comedy, Comedy of Manners
"Rudy Vallee turns in his best performance as a gentle, puny millionaire named Hackensacker in this brilliant, simultaneously tender and scalding 1942 screwball comedy by Preston Sturges--one of the real gems in Sturges's hyperproductive period at Paramount." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Tom Charity, Kevin MacDonald, Taylor Hackford, James Mangold, Whit Stillman.
Amazon  Ozu's World Movie Reviews  Time Out
 
Sullivan's Travels
PRESTON STURGES (163)
1941 | 91m | BW | USA | Comedy, Satire
"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 Richard Armstrong, Richard Schickel, Daniel Talbot, David Meeker, Edna Fainaru.
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Film Reference
         
 166    167    168
Late Spring
YASUJIRO OZU (151)
1949 | 108m | BW | Japan | Drama, Family Drama
"Late Spring is one of the best two or three films Ozu ever made, with Early Summer deserving comparison. Both films use his distinctive later visual style, which includes precise compositions for a camera that almost never moves." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2005
Selected by Carl Franklin, Bill Rothman, Barbet Schroeder, Robin Wood, Claire Denis.
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Criterion Collection Essay
 
Cries and Whispers
INGMAR BERGMAN (148)
1972 | 106m | Col | Sweden | Drama, Family Drama
"As a secular story, without the religious symbolism, Bergman’s film still registers powerfully, and contains more raw suffering and, for some, more horror than The Exorcist. " - David Ng, Images Journal
Selected by Michael Winterbottom, Terence Davies, Jonathan Glazer, Fernando Martin Pena, Santosh Sivan.
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Criterion Collection Essay
 
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
ROBERT ALTMAN (124)
1971 | 121m | Col | USA | Drama, Revisionist Western
"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 Tim Robbins, Alan Rudolph, Gore Verbinski, Terrence Rafferty, Noel Murray.
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
         
 169    170    171
La Jetée
CHRIS MARKER (178)
1962 | 29m | BW | France | Science Fiction, Avant-garde/Experimental
"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 Dennis Lim, Mira Nair, Glenn Myrent, Pier Marton, Anchalee Chaiworaporn.
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Criterion Collection Essay
 
Days of Heaven
TERRENCE MALICK (165)
1978 | 95m | Col | USA | Rural Drama, Romantic Drama
"Days of Heaven is above all one of the most beautiful films ever made. Malick's purpose is not to tell a story of melodrama, but one of loss. His tone is elegiac. He evokes the loneliness and beauty of the limitless Texas prairie." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1997
Selected by Michel Chion, Gavin Smith, Donna Bowman, Claus Philipp, Pawil Pawlikowski.
Amazon  Criterion Collection Essay  Village Voice
 
Brazil
TERRY GILLIAM (162)
1985 | 131m | Col | UK | Science Fiction, Satire
"Terry Gilliam's ferociously creative black comedy is filled with wild tonal contrasts, swarming details, and unfettered visual invention -- every shot carries a charge of surprise and delight." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Mark Kermode, Alexei Balabanov, Ernest R. Dickerson, Vadim Jean, Lourdes Portillo.
Amazon  Images Journal  Slate Magazine
         
 172    173    174
Close-Up
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI (157)
1989 | 93m | Col | Iran | Docudrama, Courtroom Drama
"Werner Herzog has called this the greatest of all documentaries about filmmaking, and he may not be far off--if only because no other film does more to interrogate certain aspects of the documentary form itself. " - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader 
Selected by Jean-Michel Frodon, Tony Rayns, Ed Lachman, Hamid Dabashi, M.K. Raghavendra.
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Senses of Cinema
 
The Maltese Falcon
JOHN HUSTON (158)
1941 | 100m | BW | USA | Mystery, Film Noir
"Don't miss The Maltese Falcon if your taste is for mystery fare. It's the slickest exercise in cerebration that has hit the screen in many months, and it is also one of the most compelling nervous-laughter provokers yet." - Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1941
Selected by Charles Burnett, Richard Schickel, Nasreem Munni Kabir, George Armitage, Charles Champlin.
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Film Reference
See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films
 
The Travelling Players
THEO ANGELOPOULOS (179)
1975 | 230m | Col | Greece | Drama, Political Drama
"A masterpiece in a dozen different ways, The Traveling Players is so complex that a critic attempting to explain it is in the same quandary as the proverbial blind men discovering an elephant." - Henry Sheehan, 1990
Selected by Michel Ciment, Ulrich Gregor, Dan Georgakas, Dan Fainaru, Martin McLoone.
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  Time Out
         
 175    176    177
Pulp Fiction
QUENTIN TARANTINO (147)
1994 | 154m | Col | USA | Crime Comedy, Ensemble Film
"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 Cameron Crowe, Danny Boyle, Alexei Balabanov, Susan Seidelman, M.K. Raghavendra.
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  San Francisco Chronicle
 
Monsieur Verdoux
CHARLES CHAPLIN (172)
1947 | 123m | BW | USA | Black Comedy, Crime Comedy
"Monsieur Verdoux is an engrossingly wry and paradoxical film, screamingly funny in places, sentimental in others, sometimes slow and devoted to an unusually serious and sobering argument." - Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1964
Selected by Gavin Lambert, Jean Douchet, Mrinal Sen, Pascal Merigeau, Elliott Stein.
Amazon  Chicago Reader (Dave Kehr)  Slant Magazine
 
La Notte
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI (153)
1961 | 120m | BW | France-Italy | Psychological Drama, Marriage Drama
"Whatever one's occasional misgivings, this feature comes from what is widely considered to be Antonioni's richest period, and evidence of his stunning mastery is available throughout." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Alexander Payne, Stig Bjorkman, Atom Egoyan, Peter Greenaway, Ivan Passer.
Amazon  Film Reference  Long Pauses
          
 178    179    180
The World of Apu
SATYAJIT RAY (164)
1959 | 103m | BW | India | Drama, Family Drama
"Mr. Ray, whose grasp of the cinema medium was uncertain in Pather Panchali, his first film, demonstrates in The World of Apu that he is master of a complex craft and style." - Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1960
Selected by Bill Rothman, Daniel Talbot, Joseph Strick, Mary Harron, Simon Louvish.
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Strictly Film School
 
Badlands
TERRENCE MALICK (183)
1973 | 95m | Col | USA | Crime Drama, Road Movie
"One of the most impressive directorial debuts ever... What distinguishes the film, beyond the superb performances of Sheen and Spacek, the use of music, and the luminous camerawork by Tak Fujimoto, is Malick's unusual attitude towards psychological motivation." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Selected by David Siegel, Adrian Martin, Hal Hartley, Vincent Canby, Thomas Allenbach.
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 
The Music Room
SATYAJIT RAY (171)
1958 | 95m | BW | India | Drama, Psychological Drama
"Ray's fourth film, a wonderfully evocative anecdote about an elderly aristocrat, slowly dying amid the crumbling splendours of the past, who decides to defy the egalitarian age that is encroaching... Slow, rapt and hypnotic, it is - given some appreciation of Indian music - a remarkable experience. " - Tom Milne, Time Out
Selected by Charles Tesson, Derek Malcolm, Gilles Jacob, Mira Nair, Alain Masson.
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  San Francisco Chronicle
         
 181    182    183
Paths of Glory
STANLEY KUBRICK (166)
1957 | 86m | BW | USA | Anti-War Film, War Drama
"Paths of Glory is both a terrifying, grim look at battle and an excruciatingly tense courtroom thriller. Together, it's a devastating indictment of war as conducted by opportunists and liars." - Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune, 2005
Selected by Barry Norman, Peter Bradshaw, Oliver Stone, Freddie Francis, William Friedkin.
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Salon Magazine
 
Trouble in Paradise
ERNST LUBITSCH (169)
1932 | 83m | BW | USA | Sophisticated Comedy, Romantic Comedy
"Trouble in Paradise is the most fondly memorable—if rarely seen—Hollywood screwball comedy. Its combination of suaveness, hilarity, and sexiness has had a mighty influence." - Armond White, Criterion Collection
Selected by Todd McCarthy, James Naremore, Richard Schickel, Pascal Merigeau, David Ansen.
Amazon  San Francisco Chronicle  Images Journal