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  The 1,000 Greatest Films The Top 400 (201-250)  
  • 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  
     
     
 
 201      202      203  
Sans soleil
CHRIS MARKER (233)
• Sunless (English title)
1983 | 100m | Col | France | Avant-garde/Experimental, Documentary
Florence Delay, Arielle Dombasle
"Chris Marker's masterpiece is one of the key nonfiction films of our time--a personal philosophical essay that concentrates mainly on contemporary Tokyo but also includes footage shot in Iceland, Guinea-Bissau, and San Francisco (where the filmmaker tracks down all the locations from Hitchcock's Vertigo)." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Veronique Godard, David Rooney, Lodge Kerrigan, Stefan Grissemann, Simon Field.
300 → 213 → 233 → 201
Amazon  Henry Sheehan  Criterion Collection Essay
 
The Crowd
KING VIDOR (178)
1928 | 104m | BW | USA | Drama, Urban Drama
James Murray, Eleanor Boardman, Bert Roach, Estelle Clark, Daniel G. Tomlinson, Dell Henderson, Lucy Beaumont, Freddie Burke Frederick, Alice Mildred Puter, Sidney Bracey
"An American rarity, a big studio art film. In this silent film Vidor traces the sad life of a totally ordinary citizen, dreaming big, living small, in a brilliant expressionistic style. But his manner, which might have had a distancing effect, never interferes with the heartbreaking emotions this powerful film stirs." - Richard Schickel, Time
Selected by Quim Casas, Fred Zinnemann, Vittorio Martinelli, Walter Salles, Ed Arentz.
185 → 150 → 178 → 202
Amazon  Slant Magazine  San Francisco Chronicle
 
Schindler's List
STEVEN SPIELBERG (212)
1993 | 195m | Col-BW | USA | War Drama, Biography
Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagalle, Embeth Davidtz, Andrzej Seweryn, Norbert Weisser, Elina Lowensohn, Malgoscha Gebel
"Schindler's List brings a pre-eminent pop mastermind together with a story that demands the deepest reserves of courage and passion. Rising brilliantly to the challenge of this material and displaying an electrifying creative intelligence, Mr. Spielberg has made sure that neither he nor the Holocaust will ever be thought of in the same way again. With every frame, he demonstrates the power of the film maker to distill complex events into fiercely indelible images." - Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Selected by Julian Fellowes, Michael Koresky, James Berardinelli, John Dahl, Matthias Greuling.
202 → 210 → 212 → 203
Amazon  The A.V. Club  metacritic
 

         
 204      205      206  
The Spirit of the Beehive
VICTOR ERICE (194)
• El Espíritu de la colmena (original title)
1973 | 95m | Col | Spain | Drama, Childhood Drama
Fernando Fernan Gomez, Teresa Gimpera, Ana Torrent, Isabel Telleria, Ketty de la Camara, Estanis Gonzalez, Jose Villasante, Juan Francisco Margallo, Laly Soldevila, Miguel Picazo
"It is one of the most beautiful and arresting films ever made in Spain, or anywhere in the past 25 years or so... The film can be construed in many ways but is, above all, an almost perfect summation of child hood imaginings." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 1999
Selected by John Sayles, Derek Malcolm, Alejandro Amenábar, Monte Hellman, Jessica Winter.
273 → 211 → 194 → 204
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Criterion Collection Essay
 
The Deer Hunter
MICHAEL CIMINO (200)
1978 | 183m | Col | USA | Ensemble Film, War Drama
Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, George Dzundza, Chuck Aspegren, Shirley Stoler, Rutanya Alda, Pierre Segui
"What distinguishes The Deer Hunter most is its many rich characters and the size of its vision. This is a big film, dealing with big issues, made on a grand scale. Much of it, including some casting decisions, suggest inspiration by The Godfather." - Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune, 1979
Selected by Milos Forman, F.X. Feeney, Serge Toubiana, Tom Tykwer, Juan Carlos Laviana.
257 → 225 → 200 → 205
Amazon  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)  Time Out
 
The Wages of Fear
HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT (205)
• Le Salaire de la peur (original title)
1952 | 105m | BW | France-Italy | Thriller, Adventure Drama
Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter Van Eyck, Vera Clouzot, Folco Lulli, Dario Moreno, William Tubbs, Jo Dest, Antonio Centa, Louis de Lima
"Here is a film that stands alone as the purest exercise in cinematic tension ever carved into celluloid, a work of art so viscerally nerve-racking that one fears a misplaced whisper from the audience could cause the screen to explode." - Dennis Lehane, The Criterion Collection
Selected by John Sayles, Philip Kaufman, Hubert Cornfield, Gore Verbinski, Alex Cox.
191 → 205 → 206 → 206
Amazon  DVD Savant  Film Reference
 

         
 207      208      209  
Kind Hearts and Coronets
ROBERT HAMER (175)
1949 | 104m | BW | UK | Black Comedy, Crime Comedy
Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson, Audrey Fildes, Miles Malleson, Clive Morton, Hugh Griffith, John Penrose, Cecil Ramage
"Hamer's direction is a thing of dry delicacy, but it's the script that makes it the definitive Ealing Studio 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, Peter Bradshaw, Terence Davies, James King, Whit Stillman.
146 → 158 → 175 → 207
Amazon  Screen Online  Criterion Collection Essay
 
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
JACQUES DEMY (248)
• Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (original title)
1964 | 91m | Col | France-Germany | Musical, Romance
Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, Ellen Farnen, Marc Michel, Mireille Perrey, Jean Champion, Harald Wolff, Dorothee Blank, Pierre Caden
"The camera swoops, the music soars, everyone looks stunning, and nobody's outfit ever clashes with the wallpaper. The plot also refuses to fall into predictable patterns of tragedy and melodrama, giving us a final act as memorable as all these elements combined. It should be seen on the big screen, where it can best be appreciated." - Keith Phipps, A.V. Club, 2002
Selected by Scott McGehee, John Woo, William Johnson, Marc Cerisuelo, Jasper Sharp.
238 → 234 → 248 → 208
Amazon  Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum)  The Village Voice
 
The Shop Around the Corner
ERNST LUBITSCH (237)
1940 | 97m | BW | USA | Workplace Comedy, Romantic Comedy
James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut, Sara Haden, Felix Bressart, William Tracy, Inez Courtney, Charles Halton, Charles Smith
"It's a marvellously delicate romantic comedy, finally very moving, with the twisted intrigues among the staff also carrying narrative weight... Thoroughly different from To Be or Not To Be but just as exhilarating, it's one of the few films truly justifying Lubitsch's reputation for a 'touch'." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Selected by Mark Cousins, Peter Bogdanovich, John Powers, Billy Wilder, Whit Stillman.
208 → 238 → 237 → 209
Amazon  Chicago Reader  DVD Savant
 

          
 210      211        212  
L'Argent
ROBERT BRESSON (201)
• Money (English title)
1983 | 90m | Col | France-Switzerland | Drama, Crime Drama
Christian Patey, Sylvie Van den Elsen, Michel Briguet, Vincent Risterucci, Caroline Lang, Beatrice Tabourin, Didier Baussy, Marc Ernest Fourneau, Bruno Lapeyre, Francois-Marie Banier
"Robert Bresson's final film is a harrowing scour of ideological cinema, based on a sermonic Tolstoy story about greed but turned by Bresson into a pantomime stations of the cross, so completely focused on sensuous minutiae, moral interrogation, and the fastidious lasering away of movie bullshit (like acting and action) that it comes as close as any movie has to 15th-century Christian icons." - Michael Atkinson, Village Voice, 2005
Selected by Olivier Assayas, M.K. Raghavendra, Neil Hunter, Shinozaki Makoto, Clara Law.
212 → 222 → 201 → 210
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Senses of Cinema
 
Tabu
F.W. MURNAU (216)
• Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (original title)
1931 | 82m | BW | USA | Romance, Docudrama
Anne Chevalier, Matahi, Hitu, Bill Bambridge, Jules, Ah Fong
"Filmed entirely in the South Seas in 1929 with a nonprofessional cast and gorgeous cinematography by Floyd Crosby, this began as a collaboration with documentarist Robert Flaherty, who still shares credit for the story, though clearly the German romanticism of Murnau predominates... The exquisite tragic ending is one of the pinnacles of silent cinema." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Fred Camper, Li Cheuk-To, Daniel Serceau, Alexandre Astruc, Eva Zaoralova.
227 → 203 → 216 → 211
Amazon  Pop Matters  Time Out
 
Written on the Wind
DOUGLAS SIRK (199)
1956 | 99m | Col | USA | Melodrama, Family Drama
Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Rock Hudson, Robert Keith, Grant Williams, Robert J. Wilke, Edward Platt, Harry Shannon, John Larch
"To appreciate a film like Written on the Wind probably takes more sophistication than to understand one of Ingmar Bergman's masterpieces, because Bergman's themes are visible and underlined, while with Sirk the style conceals the message." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1998
Selected by Ty Burr, Scott McGehee, George Kuchar, David Rooney, Jack Stevenson.
217 → 216 → 199 → 212
Amazon  Film Reference  Criterion Collection Essay
 

         
 213      214      215  
Bride of Frankenstein
JAMES WHALE (223)
1935 | 75m | BW | US | Monster Film, Sci-Fi Horror
Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Thesiger, Una O'Connor, Dwight Frye, O.P. Heggie, Gavin Gordon, Douglas Walton
"Some movies age; others ripen. Seen today, Whale's masterpiece is more surprising than when it was made because today's audiences are more alert to its buried hints of homosexuality, necrophilia and sacrilege. But you don't have to deconstruct it to enjoy it; it's satirical, exciting, funny, and an influential masterpiece of art direction." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1999
Selected by Guillermo del Toro, Joe Dante, Stuart Gordon, David Rooney, Ed Lewis.
196 → 230 → 223 → 213
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Film Reference
 
Night of the Living Dead
GEORGE A. ROMERO (260)
1968 | 96m | BW | USA | Horror, Creature Film
Judith O'Dea, Duane Jones, Karl Hardman, Russell Streiner, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley, Marilyn Eastman, Kyra Schon, Bill Heinzman, Charles Craig
"Night of the Living Dead came out of nowhere, or to be more precise, Pittsburgh, and turned into the most influential horror film since Psycho. George Romero's remarkably assured debut, made on a shoestring, about a group of people barricaded inside a farmhouse while an army of flesh-eating zombies roams the countryside, deflates all genre clichés." - Elliott Stein, Village Voice, 2003
Selected by Wes Craven, Jeff Krulik, Joe Bob Briggs, Alexandra Juhasz, David Edelstein.
285 → 270 → 260 → 214
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)
 
The Graduate
MIKE NICHOLS (215)
1967 | 105m | Col | USA | Coming-of-Age, Sex Comedy
Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross, William Daniels, Murray Hamilton, Elizabeth Wilson, Norman Fell, Buck Henry, Brian Avery, Walter Brooke
"Dustin Hoffman gives the inspired performance that launched his movie career, and director Mike Nichols shows a gift for social satire that has never glistened quite so brightly since. Anne Bancroft and Katherine Ross head the marvelous supporting cast. Simon & Garfunkel spice up the soundtrack with The Sound of Silence and other hits." - David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor, 1997
Selected by Scott Rosenberg, Vadim Jean, Gary Sinyor, Andrew Osborne, David Fincher.
215 → 229 → 215 → 215
Amazon  Film Reference  Chicago Reader
 

         
 216      217      218  
Alien
RIDLEY SCOTT (230)
1979 | 117m | Col | USA | Horror, Science Fiction
Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Ian Holm, Bolaji Badejo, Helen Horton, Eddie Powell
"It is a genuinely frightening movie which makes splatterfests like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre look juvenile... Ridley Scott puts together a white-knuckle intergalactic ride of tension and fear, which is also an essay on the hell of other people, the vulnerability of our bodies, and the idea of space as a limitless new extension of human paranoia." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 2003
Selected by Alejandro Amenábar, Tom Hunsinger, Louis Leterrier, Gary Sinyor, David Fincher.
362 → 250 → 230 → 216
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Slant Magazine
 
Unforgiven
CLINT EASTWOOD (209)
1992 | 127m | Col | USA | Western, Revisionist Western
Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Jaimz Woolvett, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher, Anna Thomson, David Mucci, Anthony James
"Unforgiven is a classic Western for the ages... Clint Eastwood has crafted a tense, hard-edged, superbly dramatic yarn that is also an exceedingly intelligent meditation on the West, its myths and its heroes." - Todd McCarthy, Variety, 1992
Selected by John Dahl, Shinozaki Makoto, Noel King, Shinji Aoyama, Richard Combs.
230 → 215 → 209 → 217
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Rolling Stone
 
Rosemary's Baby
ROMAN POLANSKI (232)
1968 | 136m | Col | USA | Occult Horror, Psychological Thriller
Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Angela Dorian, Patsy Kelly, Elisha Cook Jr., Charles Grodin
"Scary just isn't the right word for Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. It's an unnerving, artful, vaguely unpleasant picture that settles deep into your bones, leaving you feeling just a little unclean, as if you've been made uncomfortably privy to one woman's very intimate suffering." - Stephanie Zacharek, Salon, 2001
Selected by Renny Harlin, Stuart Gordon, Mark Borchardt, Wesley Strick, Atom Egoyan.
276 → 224 → 232 → 218
Amazon  Film Reference  The Village Voice
 

         
 219      220      221  
Close-Up
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI (191)
• Nema-ye Nazdik (original title)
1989 | 93m | Col | Iran | Docudrama, Courtroom Drama
Hossain Sabzian, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Hossain Farazmand, Abolfazl Ahankhah, Mehrdad Ahankhah, Monoochehr Ahankhah, Mahrokh Ahankhah, Nayer Mohseni Zonoozi, Ahmad Reza Moayed Mohseni, Hooshang Shamaei
"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.
157 → 172 → 191 → 219
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Senses of Cinema
 
The Bridge on the River Kwai
DAVID LEAN (231)
1957 | 161m | Col | UK | POW Drama, War Drama
William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald, Andre Morell, Geoffrey Horne, Peter Williams, John Boxer, Percy Herbert
"The Bridge on the River Kwai is an epic masterpiece that rests on the electric, black-comic relationship between British POW Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) and Japanese commandant Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa)." - Michael Sragow, Salon, 2001
Selected by Paul Mazursky, Norman Jewison, Fred Zinnemann, Billy Wilder, Nicholas Meyer.
182 → 204 → 231 → 220
Amazon  Screen Online  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
Johnny Guitar
NICHOLAS RAY (241)
1954 | 110m | Col | USA | Western, Psychological Western
Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady, Ward Bond, John Carradine, Ernest Borgnine, Ben Cooper, Royal Dano, Frank Ferguson
"A truly demented Western, with vividly colourful settings and and an almost operatic intensity of emotional and physical violence... It has been called Freudian, feminist, operatic, high camp and plain bizarre. Best of all, the film acts as a vigorous indictment of the McCarthy witch-hunts; as a lynch mob rides after Crawford while McCambridge bullies witnesses into false confessions." - Kim Newman, Empire
Selected by Yvonne Tasker, Chris Chang, Peter Howden, J. Hoberman, Pratibha Parmar.
426 → 281 → 241 → 221
Amazon  Film Reference  Images Journal
 

         
 222      223      224  
Alexander Nevsky
SERGEI EISENSTEIN (217)
• Aleksandr Nevskiy (original title)
1938 | 107m | BW | USSR | Historical Film, Biography
Nikolai Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov, Dmitri Orlov, Vasili Novikov, Nicolai Arsky, Varvara Massalitinova, Vera Ivashova, Aleksandra Danilova, Vladimir Yershov
"Sergei Eisenstein turns the story of the great Russian prince into an abstract exercise in visual and aural counterpoint--it's more theory than movie. But Edouard Tisse's superb photography and Prokofiev's stirring score contribute to a rhythm that is well-nigh irresistible, culminating in the famous battle on the ice." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Charles Burnett, Guy Hamilton, Peter Cowie, George Sluizer, Mary Harron.
190 → 220 → 217 → 222
Amazon  Film Reference  Movie Reviews UK
 
Peeping Tom
MICHAEL POWELL (221)
1960 | 109m | BW | UK | Thriller, Psychological Thriller
Karlheinz Bohm, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley, Moira Shearer, Esmond Knight, Michael Goodliffe, Shirley Anne Field, Brenda Bruce, Bartlett Mullins, Martin Miller
"Reviled and fetishized, Michael Powell's undeniable—if unsavory—classic was the original first-person horror film. Released in Britain barely a month before Psycho had its American premiere, Powell's serial-killer saga is no less perverse and perhaps even more disturbing... Peeping Tom exerts an awful fascination, as well it might. This is the movie that puts the sin in cinephilia." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice, 1999
Selected by Tom Milne, William Johnson, Phillip Noyce, Chris Rodley, Keith Uhlich.
239 → 241 → 221 → 223
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
La Notte
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI (204)
• The Night (English title)
1961 | 120m | BW | France-Italy | Psychological Drama, Marriage Drama
Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Monica Vitti, Bernhard Wicki, Rosy Mazzacurati, Paria Puzi Luzi, Guido A. Marsan, Vittorio Bertolini, Vincenzo Corbella, Ugo Fortunati
"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, Eva Zaoralova, Atom Egoyan, Peter Greenaway.
153 → 177 → 204 → 224
Amazon  Film Reference  Long Pauses
 

         
 225      226      227  
Imitation of Life
DOUGLAS SIRK (203)
1959 | 124m | Col | USA | Melodrama, Family Drama
Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Dan O'Herlihy, Susan Kohner, Juanita Moore, Robert Alda, Mahalia Jackson, Karen Dicker, Terry Burnham
"One of the most intellectually demanding films ever made in Hollywood... By emphasizing brilliant surfaces, bold colors, and the spatial complexities of 50s moderne architecture, Sirk creates a world of illusion, entrapment, and emotional desperation." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Neil Hunter, Paul Julian Smith, Rob Nelson, Charles Rubinstein, Paul Burston.
244 → 244 → 203 → 225
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Slant Magazine
 
Only Angels Have Wings
HOWARD HAWKS (218)
1939 | 121m | BW | USA | Romantic Adventure, Buddy Film
Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell, Sig Ruman, John Carroll, Allyn Joslyn, Noah Beery Jr., Victor Kilian
"The definitive Howard Hawks picture. Graced with superlative flying sequences, but dominated by crackling dialogue scenes in which characters trade loving insults, the film boasts a glorious cast." - Michael Wilmington, They Went Thataway, 1993
Selected by Doug Block, Alexandre Astruc, Mika Kaurismäki, John Carpenter, Hippolyte Girardot.
262 → 245 → 218 → 226
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Combustible Celluloid
 
Solaris
ANDREI TARKOVSKY (225)
• Solyaris (original title)
1972 | 165m | Col-BW | USSR | Psychological Sci-Fi, Space Adventure
 Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Juri Jarvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetsky, Nikolai Grinko, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Olga Barnet, Vitalik Kerdimun, Olga Kizilova, Tatyana Malykh
"Andrei Tarkovsky's beautiful and astonishing 1972 masterpiece ... Solaris is a dazzlingly imaginative work with awesome production values and special effects that bear comparison to those of 2001: A Space Odyssey." - Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times, 2002
Selected by Philip Strick, John Boorman, M.K. Raghavendra, Lalitha Gopalan, Jytte Jensen.
206 → 231 → 225 → 227
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Senses of Cinema
 

         
 228      229      230  
Berlin Alexanderplatz
RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER (213)
1980 | 931m | Col | Germany | Epic, Period Film
Gunter Lamprecht, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Karin Baal, Franz Buchrieser, Peter Kollek, Brigitte Mira, Mechthild Grossmann, Barbara Valentin, Hans Zander, Yaak Karsunke
"Whether it belongs to the history of television, cinema, literature or theater remains an open and interesting question, but is also somewhat academic. Whatever it is, Berlin Alexanderplatz is alive, and Fassbinder, though he died in 1982, is as vital and troubling a presence as ever." - A.O. Scott, The New York Times, 2007
Selected by Harold Becker, Thomas Elsaesser, Dennis Lim, Susan Sontag, Patrick Duynslaegher.
220 → 192 → 213 → 228
Amazon  Criterion Collection Essay  The A.V. Club
 
Le Samouraï
JEAN-PIERRE MELVILLE (240)
1967 | 95m | Col | France | Crime Thriller, Post-Noir (Modern Noir)
Alain Delon, Nathalie Delon, Francois Perier, Caty Rosier, Jacques Leroy, Jean-Pierre Posier, Catherine Jourdan, Michel Boisrond, Robert Favart, Roger Fradet
"The procedural spiral of fate and moral emptiness uncoils in magnificent, slow, almost banal ways, evoking every film of its type while it silently declares them inadequate to the task of exploring humanity. Le Samouraï has, in effect, been remade a thousand times - every impassive, hollowed-out, urban-man-of-violence movie made in the last 30 years owes it a drink." - Michael Atkinson, Village Voice, 2005
Selected by Ginette Vincendeau, John Woo, Nick Schager, Sophie Barthes, Roger Deakins.
337 → 268 → 240 → 229
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Slant Magazine
 
The Birds
ALFRED HITCHCOCK (211)
1963 | 120m | Col | USA | Horror, Natural Horror
Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy, Veronica Cartwright, Ruth McDevitt, Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw, Joe Mantell, Doodles Weaver
"Alfred Hitchcock's most abstract film, and perhaps his subtlest, still yielding new meanings and inflections after a dozen or more viewings. As emblems of sexual tension, divine retribution, meaningless chaos, metaphysical inversion, and aching human guilt, his attacking birds acquire a metaphorical complexity and slipperiness worthy of Melville." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Tom Hunsinger, Cedric Kahn, Tomislav Gavric, Liliana Cavani, Christa Blumlinger.
287 → 227 → 211 → 230
Amazon  Film Reference  Ozu's World Movie Reviews
 

         
 231      232      233  
Meet Me in St. Louis
VINCENTE MINNELLI (220)
1944 | 113m | Col | USA | Musical, Family Drama
Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Leon Ames, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, June Lockhart, Tom Drake, Marjorie Main, Harry Davenport, Hank Daniels
"As with many of the finest Hollywood films, the richness of Meet Me in St. Louis derives from the interaction of a number of sources and determinants, some of them complex in themselves, producing a filmic text to which no single, "coherent" reading can do justice." - Robin Wood, Film Reference
Selected by David Bordwell, Andy Medhurst, Terence Davies, Stephen Frears, Paul Julian Smith.
170 → 201 → 220 → 231
Amazon  The Observer  Pop Matters
 
Mr. Hulot's Holiday
JACQUES TATI (242)
• Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (original title); Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (alternative title)
1953 | 86m | BW | France | Comedy, Slapstick
Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud, Michelle Rolla, Louis Perrault, Andre Dubois, Valentine Camax, Suzy Willy, Lucien Fregis, Marguerite Gerard, Rene Lacourt
"It is not a comedy of hilarity but a comedy of memory, nostalgia, fondness and good cheer. There are some real laughs in it, but Mr. Hulot's Holiday gives us something rarer, an amused affection for human nature--so odd, so valuable, so particular." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1996
Selected by Richard Lester, David Parkinson, Sally Potter, Paul Cox, Ingmar Bergman.
209 → 219 → 242 → 232
Amazon  The A.V. Club  Images Journal
 
A Star is Born
GEORGE CUKOR (214)
1954 | 154m | Col | USA | Musical Drama, Marriage Drama
Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles Bickford, Tommy Noonan, Lucy Marlow, Amanda Blake, Irving Bacon, Hazel Shermet, James Brown
"Brutally cut after its first release and further disfigured by the insertion of the long, tasteless production number Born in a Trunk, George Cukor's 1954 film somehow survives--and even touches greatness at times... This was Cukor's first complete film in color and his first in 'Scope: both elements are used with a bold assurance and perfect expressiveness." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Kevin Thomas, Gavin Lambert, Phillip Lopate, Linda Williams, Trevor Johnston.
195 → 228 → 214 → 233
Amazon  Images Journal  Film Reference
 

          
 234      235      236  
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
TOBE HOOPER (301)
1974 | 83m | Col | USA | Horror, Slasher Film
Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Teri McMinn, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen, John Dugan, Robert Courtin
"The sensationalist brilliance of Tobe Hooper's independently made, regional horror masterwork begins with its eye-grabbing, unforgettable title. It takes guts to be so blatant up-front. More guts, in fact, than are spilled in the movie... The film is also remarkable for its technical proficiency, especially by comparison with such inept precedents as Herschell Gordon Lewis's "gore" movies." - Kim Newman, Film Reference
Selected by Wes Craven, Dennis Dermody, Jeff Krulik, Rob Zombie, Joe Bob Briggs.
237 → 266 → 301 → 234
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 
To Kill a Mockingbird
ROBERT MULLIGAN (252)
1962 | 129m | BW | USA | Courtroom Drama, Childhood Drama
Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Philip Alford, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy, Brock Peters, Robert Duvall, Ruth White, Estelle Evans
"Harper Lee's child's-eye view of southern bigotry gains something in its translation to the screen by Robert Mulligan, who knows exactly where to place the camera to catch a child's subjective experience. Mulligan even wrings a respectable performance from Gregory Peck as the country lawyer who defends a black man on a trumped-up murder charge." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Jonathan Kaplan, Martin Casariego, Scott Rosenberg, Michaela Boland, Bruce Bawer.
249 → 236 → 252 → 235
Amazon  Reel Views  The Film Journal
 
Week-End
JEAN-LUC GODARD (229)
• Week End (alternative spelling); Weekend (alternative spelling)
1967 | 103m | Col | France-Italy | Avant-garde/Experimental, Black Comedy
Mireille Darc, Jean Yanne, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Yves Beneyton, Juliet Berto, Anne Wiazemsky, Valerie Lagrange, Paul Gegauff, Daniel Pommerulle
"At the white-hot cresting moment of his epochal first phase, Jean-Luc Godard conjured this yowling, hilarious black nightmare of capitalist Armageddon, abandoning the fervent romance of his earlier films and plunging nose first into the shit-pit of bourgeoisie greed. " - Michael Atkinson, Village Voice, 2005
Selected by David Denby, Mike Figgis, Vincent Canby, Michael Sicinski, Bruce LaBruce.
188 → 199 → 229 → 236
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Film Reference
 

         
 237      238      239  
A Night at the Opera
SAM WOOD (202)
1935 | 92m | BW | USA | Anarchic Comedy, Farce
Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, Walter Woolf King, Edward Keane, Robert Emmett O'Connor
"The quick-fire routines are brilliant; the one-liners crack like gunshots and most enjoyable are wacky eccentricities like Groucho unaccountably replying: "Thangg-YAH!" whenever the woman he's inveigled into his hotel room says a demure: "Thank you." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 2002
Selected by Ken Russell, Frederick Wiseman, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Martyn Auty, John Siegel.
223 → 196 → 202 → 237
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  Film Reference
 
Cinema Paradiso
GIUSEPPE TORNATORE (374)
• Nuovo cinema Paradiso (original title)
1988 | 123m | Col | Italy-France | Melodrama, Coming-of-Age
Philippe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, Salvatore Cascio, Mario Leonardi, Agnese Nano, Leopoldo Trieste, Nicola Di Pinto, Nino Terzo, Roberta Lena, Pupella Maggio
"There are films as lovely, but none lovelier than Cinema Paradiso, a folkloric salute to the medium itself, flickering with yesterday's innocence and lingering on the mind like bubbles in wine. Born of director Giuseppe Tornatore's childhood memories, this is a magic lantern in a Sicilian boy's hand, its warm light shed on the riches of life in a poor, stone-built land. It is, in a word, exquisite." - Rita Kempley, Washington Post, 1990
Selected by Renny Harlin, Roland Emmerich, Antoine Fuqua, Lewis Gilbert, David Ondaatje.
345 → 342 → 374 → 238
Amazon  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)  Metacritic
 
Nanook of the North
ROBERT FLAHERTY (210)
1922 | 79m | BW | USA | Anthropology, Documentary
Nanook, Nyla, Cunayou, Allee, Allegoo
"Though the film has no conventional plot, it tells a coherent story through its extraordinary images. It hints at that old cliché about the noble savage being pushed towards a civilisation that will destroy him. But it does so with a rare feeling for a timeless landscape and a way of life that had remained unchanged for centuries. " - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 2000 
Selected by D.A. Pennebaker, Gilles Jacob, Aki Kaurismäki, Jonas Mekas, Les Blank.
189 → 194 → 210 → 239
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Criterion Collection Essay
 

         
 240      241      242  
Orpheus
JEAN COCTEAU (208)
• Orphée (original title)
1950 | 95m | BW | France | Fantasy, Romantic Fantasy
Jean Marais, Maria Casares, Francois Perier, Marie Dea, Juliette Greco, Edouard Dermithe, Henri Cremieux, Pierre Bertin, Roger Blin, Jacques Varennes
"I've seen Orphée at regular intervals over half a century and, though it's no longer obscure, it has lost none of its magic. This is because whatever Cocteau did as a novelist, playwright, artist and filmmaker was essentially the work of a poet, and this is a poetic movie." - Philip French, The Observer, 2004
Selected by Gilbert Adair, Derek Jarman, Anne Billson, Trevor Johnston, John Francis Lane.
176 → 200 → 208 → 240
Amazon  Criterion Collection Essay (by Jean Cocteau)  Film Reference
 
Shoot the Piano Player
FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT (245)
• Tirez sur le pianiste (original title); Shoot the Pianist (alternative title)
1960 | 92m | BW | France | Crime Drama, Post-Noir (Modern Noir)
Charles Aznavour, Marie Dubois, Nicole Berger, Michele Mercier, Albert Remy, Claude Mansard, Daniel Boulanger, Richard Kanayan, Jacques Aslanian, Serge Davri
"Truffaut shot many different sorts of pictures, but he rarely matched this one for casual magic. In bed with his prostitute neighbor (the memorable Michele Mercier), Aznavour playfully pulls a sheet up over her breasts, noting: "This is how it's done in the movies." Truffaut's key work of the French New Wave showed there's more than one way to do it." - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Selected by Jonathan Demme, Todd McCarthy, Gary Crowdus, Glenn Myrent, Doug Block.
235 → 262 → 245 → 241
Amazon  Film Reference  Time Out
 
Diary of a Country Priest
ROBERT BRESSON (235)
• Journal d'un curé de campagne (original title)
1950 | 120m | BW | France | Psychological Drama, Religious Drama
Claude Laydu, Marie-Monique Arkell, Andre Guibert, Jean Riveyre, Nicole Maurey, Nicole Ladmiral, Martine Lemaire, Antoine Balpetre, Jean Danet, Gaston Severin
"This spare, intense 1950 film, adapted from Georges Bernanos' novel, is Robert Bresson at his greatest and most difficult, building a profound sense of a higher order through its relentless detailing of the cold, small facts of everyday life. A masterpiece, beyond question." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by John Anderson, Hal Hartley, Kim Ji-Seok, Tomislav Gavric, Andre S. Labarthe.
200 → 208 → 235 → 242
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Criterion Collection Essay
 

         
 243      244      245  
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
DAVID HAND (256)
1937 | 83m | Col | USA | Fairy Tale, Animated Musical
Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille LaVerne, Moroni Olsen, Billy Gilbert, Pinto Colvig, Otis Harlan, Scotty Mattraw, Roy Atwell, Stuart Buchanan
"Walt Disney's first full-length cartoon is as rich and fun as it was in post-Depression 1937 -- yes, 1937. And the seven dwarfs (Doc, Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Grumpy and Dopey) are every bit as charming as they "Hi-ho" to work at the diamond mine." - Desson Howe, Washington Post, 1987
Selected by Christopher Frayling, Dusan Makavejev, Susannah Frankel, Oscar Colulich, Luis Alberto de Cuenca.
272 → 298 → 256 → 243
Amazon  Reverse Shot  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
Crimes and Misdemeanors
WOODY ALLEN (272)
1989 | 104m | Col | USA | Comedy Drama, Psychological Drama
Caroline Aaron, Alan Alda, Woody Allen, Claire Bloom, Mia Farrow, Joanna Gleason, Anjelica Huston, Martin Landau, Jenny Nichols, Jerry Orbach
"The principal characters in Crimes and Misdemeanors, Mr. Allen's most securely serious and funny film to date, have a way of jumping headlong from the specific to the general, trying to place themselves in some larger system of things. So, too, does Mr. Allen, and never before has he made the leap with more self-assurance than in this adventurous dramatic comedy." - Vincent Canby, The New York Times, 1989
Selected by Bryan Singer, Michael Moore, Peter Bradshaw, David Siegel, John Dahl.
203 → 226 → 272 → 244
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Reverse Shot
 
Sátántangó
BÉLA TARR (343)
1994 | 450m | BW | Hungary-Germany-Switzerland | Drama
Mihaly Vig, Putyi Horvath, Laszlo Lugossy, Eva Almassy Albert, Janos Derzsi, Iren Szajki, Alfred Jarai, Miklos Szekely B., Erzsebet Gaal, Erika Bok
"Most simply described, Tarr's masterpiece—adapted from a much esteemed, if still untranslated, novel by László Krasznahorkai—is a bleakly comic allegory of social disintegration on the muddy puszta. Set on an entropic collective farm during the last years of Hungarian Communism, it's a mordant, characteristically Eastern European tale of hapless peasants and charismatic swindlers." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice, 2006
Selected by Gus Van Sant, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Ulrich Gregor, Jonathan Romney, Manohla Dargis.
338 → 303 → 343 → 245
Amazon  Village Voice (Ed Halter)  Time Out
 

         
 246      247      248  
In the Mood for Love
WONG KAR-WAI (344)
• Fa yeung nin wa (original title)
2000 | 97m | Col | Hong Kong-France | Melodrama, Romantic Drama
Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Rebecca Pan, Lui Chun, Ping Lam Siu, Chin Chi-Ang, Chan Man-Lui, Koo Kam-Wah, Ysu Hsien, Chow Po-Chun
"Boldly mannered yet surprisingly delicate, In the Mood for Love is a wondrously perverse movie that not only evokes a lost moment in time but circles around an unrepresentable subject... Governed by laws as strict as the old Hollywood production code, it's rhapsodically sublimated and ultimately sublime." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice, 2001
Selected by Mira Nair, Ernest R. Dickerson, Jonathan Ross, Paul McGuigan, Havana Marking.
382 → 317 → 344 → 246
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Slant Magazine
See Also: The 21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films
 
Zero for Conduct
JEAN VIGO (239)
• Zéro de conduite (original title)
1933 | 41m | BW | France | Drama, Childhood Drama
Louis Lefevre, Gilbert Pluchon, Gerard de Bedarieux, Jean Daste, Constantine Goldstein-Kehler, Robert Le Flon, le nain Delfin, Louis de Gonzague-Frick, Du Verron, Leon Larive
"Jean Vigo's 1933 masterpiece charts the rebellion of three young French boys in a sordid little provincial boarding school. A wholly original creation, the film walks a narrow line between surrealist farce and social realism." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Yvonne Rainer, James Naremore, Lindsay Anderson, Penelope Gilliatt, Orlando Lubbert.
211 → 263 → 239 → 247
Amazon  Film Reference  Films de France
 
The Passenger
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI (243)
• Professione: reporter (original title)
1975 | 119m | Col | Italy | Road Movie, Psychological Drama
Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre, Ian Hendry, Steven Berkoff, Ambroise Bia, Jose Maria Caffarel, James Campbell, Manfred Spies, Jean-Baptiste Tiemele
"Released in 1975 to mixed reviews and audience indifference, The Passenger now looks to be one of the deepest, most rigorous, and most rewarding films of its era... This may be the first existentialist star vehicle, and it is mesmerizing... Slow as death and graceful as an angel, The Passenger continues to haunt." - Ty Burr, The Boston Globe, 2005
Selected by John Powers, Helena Ylanen, Lloyd Hughes, Ulrich Seidl, Robert Benayoun.
250 → 232 → 243 → 248
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  Slant Magazine
 

         
 249      250      
Senso
LUCHINO VISCONTI (262)
• The Wanton Countess (USA title)
1954 | 115m | Col | Italy | Period Film, Melodrama
Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Massimo Girotti, Heinz Moog, Rina Morelli, Marcella Mariani, Christian Marquand, Tonio Selwart, Sergio Fantoni, Cristoforo De Hartungen
"Like other Visconti melodramas, sumptuous in its Technicolor expressionism, Senso sees heterosexual love through homosexual eyes... Visconti, using English dialogue by Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles, generates emotions so violent that even his operatic vision can barely contain them." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Selected by Richard Dyer, Pedro Almodóvar, Freddy Buache, Roberto Nepoti, Hans Gunther Pflaum.
302 → 276 → 262 → 249
Amazon  Eye for Film  All-Movie Guide
 
Last Tango in Paris
BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI (222)
• Ultimo tango a Parigi (original title)
1973 | 129m | Col | France-Italy | Psychological Drama, Erotic Drama
Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Maria Michi, Catherine Allegret, Marie-Helene Breillat, Catherine Breillat, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Darling Legitimus, Catherine Sola, Mauro Marchetti
"What a bizarre film it is, capable of delivering some shocks, certainly, but possessing not power exactly, but a fascinating, unevolved clumsiness. Brando confronts the audience like a bull behind the china shop counter, and his extraordinary, old-fashioned charisma is what keeps you watching." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 2007
Selected by Charles Taylor, John McNaughton, William Friedkin, Edgar Reitz, Hector Babenco.
207 → 217 → 222 → 250
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 

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