I have not seen every film. Nor would I have the assumption that I have the ability to define what is great, or what greatness is. When reading the lists of Sight & Sound, Roger Ebert or the AFI / BFI, it becomes clear that greatness in film is measured by general popularity combined with meticulous craftsmanship and how groundbreaking and influential a film is. This is a logical place to start: combing through audience lists like Empire Magazine or IMDb determines what the general public like, but then this omits films from cinema's early years that are lost in the mainstream. There is a third aspect I feel has to be measured when it comes to 'greatness': what the film art-form actually does. When I drew up around 200 'nominated' films for this list, what guided me was to what extent did each film's story serve the medium the most; if the film could be as well told in another artistic mediums, does that diminish its position? The films I ended up choosing are the ones that best exemplify what makes the filmmaking medium the most potent of the arts: when editing, photography and music form a symbiotic relationship. A further rule I set was that no director could be represented more than three times on this list in order to have some sense of diversity in filmmaking style. So whilst The Conversation, Ikiru and Great Expectations are all immensely worthy of the list, Coppola, Kurosawa and Lean all have three stronger entries to show their style.
These are not my 100 favourite films, but these are 100 films that I deem vital to cinema's history and remind me what makes filmmaking so special, even if I don't overwhelmingly like some of them.
*no order*
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927)
City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931)
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932)
Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)
Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell, Eric Pressburger, 1946)
The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Eric Pressburger, 1948)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961)
Harakiri (Masaka Kobayashi, 1962)
The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
McCabe & Mrs Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981)
Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984)
Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
My Neighbour Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)
JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)
Carlito's Way (Brian De Palma, 1993)
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)
No Country for Old Men (Coen Brothers, 2007)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
The Revenant (Alejandro Inarritu, 2015)
Blade Runner 2049 (Dennis Villeneuve, 2017)
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
70. Harakiri (Masaka Kobayashi, 1962)
69. Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
68. Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)
67. L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997)
66. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)
65. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
64. The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
63. Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
62. Mr Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939)
61. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
60. Wall-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
59. Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater, 1995)
58. Silence of the Lambs (Jonathon Demme, 1991)
57. The Lion King (Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff, 1994)
56. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
55. La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)
54. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
53. All the President's Men (Alan J Pakula, 1976)
52. The Raid (Gareth Evans, 2011)
51. To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
50. The Thin Red Line (Terence Malick, 1998)
49. Inside Out (Pete Doctor, 2015)
48. Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
47. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
46. Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
45. Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)
44. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
43. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
42. It's A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
41. Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
40. The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
39. In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967)
38. The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)
37. 12 Angry Men (Sydney Lumet, 1957)
36. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)
35. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
34. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
33. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
32. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)
31. Dog Day Afternoon (Sydney Lumet, 1975)
30. Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
29. Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
28. The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978)
27. Spirited Away (Hiyao Miyazaki, 2001)
26. Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)
25. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
24. Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)
23. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
22. The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola. 1974)
21. The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)
20. The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003)
19. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
18. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
17. Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945)
16. A Clockwork Orange (Staley Kubrick, 1971)
15. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
14. Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donan, Gene Kelly, 1952)
13. The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
12. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
11. Das Boot (Wolfgang Peterson, 1984)
10. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
9. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1943)
8. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
7. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
6. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
5. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
4. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
3. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
2. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
No comments:
Post a Comment