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L'Eclisse.
1982 / USA / 115m / Col / Science Fiction, Children's FantasyDee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, K.C. Martel, Sean Frye, Tom Howell, Erika Eleniak, David O'Dell"ET: The Extra Terrestrial - the story of the little boy from a broken home who befriends an extra-terrestrial creature stranded on Earth - really is a masterpiece... This is a brilliant film about the alienated and powerless experience of being a child, especially a child forced to absorb the scaldin it works as a brilliant metaphor for this pain as well being a superb sci-fi adventure. It is a visionary romance - and there have never been many of those." - Selected by , Carrie Rickey, , , Juan Antonio Bayona. /
Bakush& (original title)
1951 / Japan / 135m / BW / Drama, Family DramaSetsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu, Chikage Awashima, Kuniko Miyake, Ichiro Sugai, Chieko Higashiyama, Haruko Sugimura, Kuniko Ikawa, Kan Nihonyanagi, Shuji Sano"Yasujiro Ozu's signature low angle camera strikes a delicate, harmonious balance in Early Summer, and echoes the dichotomy of contemporary Japan: tradition versus modernization, selfishness versus altruism, respect for elders versus independence. Compassionate and characteristically reserved, Ozu chronicles the disintegration of the traditional extended family as an accepted process of life, and the film evolves with a sense of appropriate inevitability. The contrast between the elders, usually contemplative and at leisure, and the younger generations - the overworked Koichi and the impatient children (with literal one track minds) - reflect the various stages of life." - Selected by I, , , , David Sterritt. /
Zemlya (original title)
1930 / USSR / 75m / BW / Drama, Rural DramaSemyon 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. Murdered by a crazed kulak (or wealthy peasant), Earth's young hero is a martyr to the fertility of harvest. Released amid the campaign to liquidate the kulaks, Earth is ultimately a pagan myth made to celebrate a tragic social experiment." - Selected by Gilberto Perez, , Kevin Jackson, John Gianvito, . /
1955 / USA / 115m / Col / Family Drama, Rural DramaJames Dean, Raymond Massey, Julie Harris, Richard Davalos, Burl Ives, Jo Van Fleet, Albert Dekker, Lois Smith, Harold Gordon, Timothy Carey"It was Kazan's first color film and his first CinemaScope production. He handles both magnificently. He shoots in longer takes, which gives the film the slower pace of an older age and draws the eye to Dean's restlessness and nervous spontaneity, which stands out against the calm and control of the rest of cast. "His body was much more expressive, actually, in free movement, than Brando's it had so much tension to it," observed Kazan. "Dean h and I did play a lot with it in long shots." - Selected by , Robert De Niro, , Gulbara Tolomushova, . /
1969 / USA / 94m / Col / Road Movie, Biker FilmPeter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Antonio Mendoza, Phil Spector, Jack Nicholson, Warren Finnerty, Mac Mashourian, Tita Colorado, Luke Askew, Luana Anders"As Billy and &Captain America,& Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda motored down the highway on their Harley Davidsons to the roaring strains of Steppenwolf&s &Born to Be Wild,& the definitive counterculture blockbuster was born. Former clean-cut teen star Hopper&s down-and-dirty directorial debut, Easy Rider heralded the arrival of a new voice in film, one pitched angrily against the mainstream. After Easy Rider&s cross-country journey&with its radical, New Wave&style editing, outsider-rock soundtrack, revelatory performance by a young Jack Nicholson, and explosive ending&the American road trip would never be the same." - Selected by Jan Sver&k, , , Kaushik Bhaumik, Luciano Barisone. /
The Eclipse (English title)
1962 / Italy-France / 126m / BW / Psychological Drama, Urban DramaMonica Vitti, Alain Delon, Francisco Rabal, Lilla Brignone, Louis Seigner, Rosanna Rory, Mirella Ricciardi, Cyrus Elias"The conclusion of Michelangelo Antonioni&s informal trilogy on modern malaise, L&eclisse tells the story of a young woman (Vitti) who leaves one lover (Rabal) only to drift into a relationship with another (Delon). Using the architecture of Rome as a backdrop for the couple&s doomed affair, Antonioni reaches the apotheosis of his modernist style, returning to his favorite themes: alienation and the difficulty of finding connections in an increasingly mechanized world." - Selected by Andrei Plakhov, Gilberto Perez, Judith Williamson, , Tim Lucas. /
1994 / USA / 124m / BW / Comedy Drama, BiographyJohnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, Vincent D'Onofrio, G.D. Spradlin, Lisa Marie, Juliet Landau, Bill Murray"Ed Wood isn't really a biography, and it isn't too concerned with the ins and outs of no-budget filmmaking either. The film is dreamy myth-making, as Burton's first obvious aim was to resurrect
films and imbue them with the transcendent power their filmmaker intended& Burton never before or ever again exhibited the astonishing range of talent he displayed in Ed Wood& As American films became more and more polished, more impersonal than ever before, Ed Wood, a testament to following your own inner tune despite almost certain personal oblivion, is looking more and more like one of America's great movies." - Selected by Rodrigo Arag&o, Bobcat Goldthwait, Malcolm Ingram, J.D. Lafrance, Kepa Sojo. / No votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll /
1974 / Sweden-Norway / 210m / Col / Drama, BiopicGeir Westby, Gro Fraas, Iselin von Hanno Bart, Eric Allum, Amund Berge, Kerstii Allum, Inger-Berit Oland, Susan Troldmyr, Camilla Falk, Peter Watkins"This 1974 masterpiece&a biopic of the famed Norwegian Expressionist and sickbed child of the Industrial Age's alienation aura&may be Watkins' most accessible film, thanks to the high-art hook& Not only does it convincingly dare to approximate a documentary&narration, direct-camera address, etc.&as Watkins has done from the beginning of his career, but the film also places 19th-century class injustice, including the small matter of pervasive child labor, in the foreground so relentlessly that Munch himself (personified by Eric Allum) often disappears into the social weft." - Selected by Gareth Evans, Emily Wardill, Craig Keller, Javier Rebollo, Nick Wrigley. /
1990 / USA / 100m / Col / Fantasy Comedy, RomanceJohnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Vincent Price, Alan Arkin, Robert Oliveri, Conchata Ferrell, Caroline Aaron"The misunderstood outcast is one of the most cherished of Hollywood heroes, and in Edward Scissorhands director Tim Burton shows us why. The story is a touching fable, an old-fashioned parable of love and intolerance -- but with a distinctly Burton-esque spin. The film is proof of just how different the director's visual style is: the fairy-tale suburbia he creates is a perfect example of his astonishing, uniquely Gothic look&
Edward Scissorhands is a charming tale, beautifully realized, and, like its protagonist, nothing if not unique." - Selected by Destin Daniel Cretton, Giovanni Veronesi, , Floria Sigismondi, Isabel Coixet. / No votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll /
Otto e mezzo (original title)Top 10 Film
1963 / Italy / 135m / BW / Satire, Psychological DramaMarcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, Guido Alberti, Mario Pisu, Madeleine LeBeau, Jean Rougeul"If all you know about this exuberant, self-regarding 1963 film is based on its countless inferior imitations (from
Alex in Wonderland and The Pickle to
Stardust Memories to
All That Jazz), you owe it to yourself to see Federico Fellini's exhilarating, stocktaking original, an expressionist, circuslike comedy about the complex mental and social life of a big-time filmmaker (Marcello Mastroianni) stuck for a subject and the busy world surrounding him. It's Fellini's last black-and-white picture and conceivably the most gorgeous and inventive thing he ever did&certainly more fun than anything he made after it." - Selected by , , Joan Mellen, , Stanley Kauffman. /
This Strange Passion (English title)
1953 / Mexico / 91m / BW / Black Comedy, SatireArturo de Cordova, Delia Garces, Luis Beristain, Aurora Walker, Carlos Martinez Baena, Manuel Donde, Rafael Banquells, Fernando Casanova, Jose Pidal, Roberto Meyer"Released at the pinnacle of his prolific Mexican period, &El remains one of Luis Bu&uel's crowning achievements. "Ironically, there's absolutely nothing Mexican about &El; it's simply the portrait of a paranoiac, who, like a poet, is born, not made," says the director in his autobiography. Though set in Mexico and ripe with authentic details from daily life, &El is less a portrait of machismo gone awry than it is a brutal and absurd glimpse at one man's runaway paranoia" - Selected by , Jean Narboni, , Ed Gonzalez, Daniela Michel. /
1967 / USA / 126m / Col / Western, Buddy FilmJohn Wayne, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Charlene Holt, Michele Carey, Arthur Hunnicutt, R.G. Armstrong, Edward Asner, Paul Fix, Christopher George"Hawks' effortless Western gathers together a gunfighter, a drunken sheriff, a young hopeful, a couple of tough women, and sets them up in a jail, fighting for their lives against a cattle baron and his hired killers. Sounds familiar? In many ways the plot resembles Hawks' earlier Rio Bravo, and several of the themes are again present: the importance of group solidarity, self-respect, professionalism, and acceptance of others' faults& This is an old man's movie only in the sense that it deals with the problems of approaching the valley of death. In other words, it's a witty, exciting and deeply moving masterpiece." - Selected by Fred Camper, Jos& Luis Cienfuegos, Mary Lea Bandy, , Yoel Meranda. /
1989 / UK / 39m / Col / Drama, Short FilmGary Walker, Bill Hamilton, Michael Foyle, Danny Small, Robert J. Taylor, Joe Cauley, Joe McGee, Patrick Condren, Andrew Downs, Terry Doyle"Elephant is without question Alan Clarke's bleakest film. Essentially a compilation of eighteen murders on the streets of Belfast, without explanatory narrative or characterisation and shot in a cold, dispassionate documentary style, the film succinctly captures the horror of sectarian killing. The lack of narrative removes any scope for justification of the killings on religious, political or any other grounds and the matter-of-factness of Clarke's approach debases the often-heroic portrayal - by all sides - of the individuals involved in sectarian murder. Moreover, Clarke's use of a Steadicam to follow the killers before and during the murders casts the viewer as at best a willing voyeur, at worst an accomplice.& - Selected by , , David Leland, Joe Lawlor, Michel Lipkes. /
2003 / USA / 81m / Col / Drama, Ensemble FilmAlex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Elias McConnell, Jordan Taylor, Carrie Finklea, Nicole George, Timothy Bottoms, Matt Malloy, Larry Laverty"Elephant is a poetic disaster film that audaciously addresses the subject of American high school shootings. It was inspired by the 1999 Columbine massacre but incorporates details from other incidents, treating the material with a combination of bold aestheticism and documentary whimsy. Expertly shot by Harris Savides in the boxy 1.33:1 standard TV aspect ratio, the spectacle is designed for maximum glide&a film of long traveling shots over complex sound bridges. Less staged than unfurled, the narrative is essentially anecdotal. Characters are introduced as they hobnob in their school's cafeteria or pass through its sterile corridors." - Selected by Cui Zi'en, Emily Richardson, Janez Burger, Stig Bjorkman, .See also . /
1980 / USA / 125m / BW / Biography, Medical DramaJohn Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Freddie Jones, Michael Elphick, Hannah Gordon, Helen Ryan, John Standing"More accessible than Lynch's enigmatically disturbing Eraserhead, The Elephant Man has much the same limpidly moving humanism as
L'Enfant Sauvage in describing how the unfortunate John Merrick (Hurt), brutalised by a childhood in which he was hideously abused as an inhuman freak, was gradually coaxed into revealing a soul of such delicacy and refinement that he became a lion of Victorian society& A marvellous movie, shot in stunning black-and-white by Freddie Francis." - Selected by Neill Blomkamp, , Isamu Hirabayashi, Maja Bogojevic, Goran Gocic. /
Yuki Yukite shingun (original title)
1987 / Japan / 123m / Col / History, DocumentaryKenzo Okuzaki, Riichi Aikawa, Masaichi Hamaguchi, Toshio Hara, Shichiro Kojima, Masao Koshimizu, Taro Maruyama, Toshiyo Nomura, Shizumi Okuzaki, Eizaburo Oshima"A documentary portrait of Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old WWII veteran who acquired a prison record (for killing a man and for firing pachinko balls at the Emperor) in the course of his fanatical campaign to lay the blame for Japan's conduct of the war on the Emperor& Kazuo Hara's fly-on-the-wall documentary fascinates both for its bizarre protagonist, and for its brutally frank portrait of a society constrained by notions of shame rather than guilt. Jigsaw-like in construction, alleviated by mad wit, the film is unlike any other: rough, raw and sometimes surprisingly moving, it's absolutely compelling." - Selected by Lizzie Francke, Ally Derks, Dennis Doros, , Sean Jacobs. /
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (alternative title)
1980 / USA / 124m / Col / Science Fiction, Space AdventureMark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Alec Guinness, Peter Mayhew, Frank Oz"The Empire Strikes Back is the best of three Star Wars films, and the most thought-provoking. After the space opera cheerfulness of the original film, this one plunges into darkness and even despair, and surrenders more completely to the underlying mystery of the story. It is because of the emotions stirred in Empire that the entire series takes on a mythic quality that resonates back to the first and ahead to the third. This is the heart." - Selected by , Ferenc Zalaba, Gyorgy Palfi, Matthew Leyland, . /
Kohayagawa-ke no aki (original title); Early Autumn (alternative title)
1961 / Japan / 103m / Col / Drama, Family DramaGanjiro Nakamura, Setsuko Hara, Yoko Tsukasa, Michiyo Aratama, Reiko Dan, Keiju Kobayashi, Masahiko Shimazu, Haruko Sugimura, Hisaya Morisighe, Chieko Naniwa"Modernisation/westernisation shapes everything, from family ethics to fashions in food, drink, work, dance and clothes. As in Floating Weeds, much of the film is funny (notably a stalking sequence and a hide-and-seek scene that make virtuoso play with point of view, and a delightfully 'untimely' fart gag), but towards the end it takes on a dark solemnity unusual even in Ozu's most poignant work. Another gem - and only the atypically emphatic music disappoints." - Selected by
Ashim Ahluwalia, Edward Lawrenson, , Grace Mak. /
Naked Childhood (English title)
1968 / France / 80m / Col / Childhood Drama, Coming-of-AgeMichel Terrazon, Marie-Louise Thierry, Rene Thierry, Raoul Billerey, Maurice Coussonneau, Pierrette Deplanque, Linda Gutemberg, Marie Marc, Henri Puff"The singular French director Maurice Pialat puts his distinctive stamp on the lost-youth film with this devastating portrait of a damaged foster child. We watch as ten-year-old Fran&ois (Terrazon) is shuttled from one home to another, his behavior growing increasingly erratic, his bonds with his surrogate parents perennially fraught. In this, his feature debut, Pialat treats that potentially sentimental scenario with astonishing sobriety and stark realism. With its full-throttle mixture of emotionality and clear-eyed skepticism, L&enfance nue was advance notice of one of the most masterful careers in French cinema, and remains one of Pialat&s finest works." - Selected by Valeska Grisebach, , Girish Shambu, Mimi Brody, Cedric Kahn. /
1982 / France / 92m / BW / Romance, Psychological DramaAnne Wiazemsky, Henri de Maublanc, Xuan Lindenmeyer, Cecile Le Bailly, Elli Medeiros, Philippe Garrel, Ari Boulogne, Benoit Ferreux, Eliane Roy, Bambou"A man communicates that he has suffered. A filmmaker claims to be testifying for his generation. An experience struggles to become a story. A frozen narrative still burns. Is it a film? If so, then L&Enfant secret bears little resemblance to what passes today as French cinema& What makes French cinema unique is unsummarisable films, works that appear to be pages torn from logbooks or intimate diaries, and a preference for black-and-white and voice-over: Un chant d&amour, Pickpocket, Le Testament d&Orphee, Le Petit Soldat, L&Enfance nue, L&Amour fou, all of
and now L&Enfant secret." - Selected by Quim Casas, St&phane Delorme, Violeta Kovacsics, Filipe Furtado, Adrian Martin. /
Children of Paradise (English title)Top 100 Film
1945 / France / 195m / BW / Period Film, Romantic DramaPierre Brasseur, Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Renoir, Maria Casares, Gaston Modot, Fabien Loris, Marcel Herrand, Louis Salou, Jane Marken"Children Of Paradise is the ultimate theater-as-life movie, rich in historical allusions past and present, a landmark production that overcame constant harassment by the Germans and stands as a key testament to the spirit of the French Resistance. But apart from mere dissertation fodder, the film remains an exemplary piece of popular entertainment, full of vibrancy and wit, with unforgettable characters and a delicate, bittersweet tone that considers their emotions in balance." - Selected by , Kenneth Turan, , , Tim Lucas. /
Jeder f&r sich und Gott gegen alle (original title); Every Man for Himself and God Against All (alternative title)
1974 / West Germany / 110m / Col / Psychological Drama, BiographyBruno S., Walter Ladengast, Brigitte Mira, Herbert Achternbusch, Wolfgang Bauer, Wilhelm Bayer, Gloria Doer, Willy Semmelrogge, Volker Prechtel, Enno Patalas"The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is a poignant, visually exquisite allegory of how civilization breeds despair. Based on a true story similar to the case in
The Wild Child (1970), Herzog's rendering of isolated, preverbal foundling Kaspar Hauser's release into the world as an adult reveals the perverse effects of "rational" thought and culture on natural, soulful innocence& Along with Herzog's odd angles and compositions, former mental patient Bruno S.'s ethereal, evocatively affectless performance as Kaspar makes him both endearing and strange, emphasizing his impossible place in 19th century society." - Selected by Dieter Kosslick, Goran Gocic, Julian Jarrold, , Michael Dudok de Wit. /
1977 / USA / 85m / BW / Avant-garde-Experimental, Surrealist FilmJack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates, Judith Anna Roberts, Laurel Near, V. Phipps-Wilson, Jack Fisk, Jean Lange, Thomas Coulson"Watching Eraserhead today, what emerges is the sheer, immersive clarity of David Lynch&s vision, the sense of a world unlike our own and yet inextricably bound to it: a world in which all the light has been sucked out, leaving only horror and isolation, desperation and unattainable dreams. Knowing the struggles Lynch and his crew underwent to complete this wildly uncommercial labour of love, over five years of scratching for every budgetary dollar, the absence of compromise astounds. Eraserhead is a singular work of the imagination, a harrowing, heartbreaking plunge into the darkest recesses of the soul." - Selected by , Anton Dolin, Anton Bitel, Donald Clarke, Edgar P&ra. /
2004 / USA / 108m / Col / Comedy Drama, Romantic FantasyJim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Jane Adams, David Cross, Tom Wilkinson, Deirdre O'Connell, Debbon Ayer"Possibly the most elaborate romantic comedy ever predicated on the gimmick of amnesia, Eternal Sunshine has a more than passing resemblance to Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, the two movies Charlie Kaufman wrote for . It's also a notable improvement over Gondry's first feature, Human Nature (written by Kaufman as well). Filled with the writer's trademark neurotic characters, grungy atmospherics, and downbeat emphasis on domestic discord, it's a baroque and intermittently brilliant brain twister so convoluted that it inevitably deposits the viewer in an alternate universe." - Selected by Daniel Nettheim, , Amy Berg, Roberta Ciabarra, Chris Knight.See also . /
Top 25 of the 1950s1. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)2. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)3. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)4. Seven Samurai, The (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)5. Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)6. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)7. The 400 Blows (Fran&ois Truffaut, 1959)8. Some Like it Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)9. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)10. Ordet (Carl Dreyer, 1955)11. Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)12. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)13. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)14. Ugetsu monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)15. Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)16. Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)17. Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)18. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)19. La Strada (Federico Fellini, 1954)20. The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)21. Voyage in Italy (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)22. Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)23. A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)24. Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)25. Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais, 1959) The Greatest Love (USA title)
1952 / Italy / 113m / BW / Drama, Psychological DramaIngrid Bergman, Alexander Knox, Giulietta Masina, Ettore Giannini, Teresa Pellati, Sandro Franchina, William Tubbs, Alfred Brown, Gianna Segale, Tina Perna"The second collaboration between Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman (after Stromboli), Europa '51 is a provocative, haunting, and compassionate examination of the isolating and often misunderstood path of personal redemption and spiritual service in contemporary society. Composed of alternating sequences of daytime and nighttime episodes (that would be similarly used by
in his subsequent film, La Dolce Vita), the film presents a recurring visual dichotomy that illustrates the polarizing division between wealth and poverty, spirituality and materialism, vanity and humility, selfishness and benevolence." - Selected by Julio P&rez Perucha, Manuel Ferrari, Marco M&ller, Nicoletta Romeo, Ruy Gardnier. /
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (alternative title)
1987 / USA / 85m / Col / Horror, Horror ComedyBruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley, Theodore Raimi, Denise Bixler, Richard Domeier, Lou Hancock, John Peaks, Snowy Winters"Sam Raimi&s eye-popping sequel to the cult classic original deftly treads the line between frightfest and horror satire. Starring Bruce Campbell, Raimi&s favorite non-actor & or, as Raimi calls him, "the king of acting in reverse" & the film either follows nonsensically on the heels of the first or co it takes place in the same cabin with the same Book of the Dead, as if Ash would simply head on back to try his luck a second time. (He is just about that dim.) Deploying the full range of low-budget effects, Evil Dead II still looks junky, but Raimi&s goofball sense of humor makes the film&s very tawdriness appealing." - Selected by , Corin Hardy, Cheryl Dunye, Chris Butler & Sam Fell, Mike White. / No votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll /
1981 / UK / 140m / Col / Sword-and-Sorcery, Mythological FantasyNigel Terry, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay, Cherie Lunghi, Paul Geoffrey, Nicol Williamson, Robert Addie, Gabriel Byrne, Keith Buckley, Katrine Boorman"The myth and legend of King Arthur has long been a favorite fascination of popular culture& John Boorman&s magnificent and magical Excalibur is, to my mind, the greatest and the richest of screen incarnation of the oft-told tale. Filmed on the rocky coasts and in the emerald forests of Ireland, Boorman turns this landscape into a primal world hewn out of stone and wood and mud by blood and iron& It&s also a magnificent blood and thunder tale of men with swords torn between the primal drives of power and lust and the idealism brought to the land by Arthur, the benevolent king who encourages his knights to go forth in acts of heroism and chivalry." - Selected by , , Sek Kei, Jon Wright, Christian McCrea. / No votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll /
1973 / USA / 122m / Col / Horror, Religious DramaEllen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Jason Miller, Jack MacGowran, Kitty Winn, Barton Heyman, Peter Masterson, Rudolf Schundler"I've revisited The Exorcist over the years and found it effective every time. Because it's founded on characters, details and a realistic milieu, the shocks don' they still seem to grow from the material&
The movie is more horrifying because it does not seem to want to be. The horror creeps into the lives of characters preoccupied with their lives: Father Karras (Miller) with his mother and his faith, Father Merrin (von Sydow) with his work and health, Chris MacNeil (Burstyn) with her career and marriage. The movie also gains power because it takes its theology seriously--for a movie, anyway." - Selected by , , Mark Kermode, , . /
1994 / Canada / 104m / Col / Psychological Drama, Ensemble FilmDon McKellar, Mia Kirshner, Arsinee Khanjian, Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Sarah Polley, Victor Garber, Calvin Green, David Hemblen, Peter Krantz"A creative coup for the endlessly challenging writer/director Atom Egoyan, Exotica is a haunting, beautifully rendered tale of obsession and sexual frustration, following six disparate characters whose lives entwine in the most bizarre of ways. Employing overlapping and reverse chronology (a staple of Egoyan's storytelling), the picture builds slowly until its revelations become apparent, and the end result is a hypnotic and moving chronicle of broken lives and loss. The performances are all affecting and first-rate, and despite its key setting (a strip joint), the film is never obscene or concerned with rubbing the viewer's face in excess." - Selected by Emma Wilson, Mike D'Angelo, Ruth Barton, M.K. Raghavendra, Steve Erickson. /
El &Angel exterminador (original title)
1962 / Mexico / 95m / BW / Comedy Drama, SatireSilvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal, Lucy Gallardo, Claudio Brook, Tito Junco, Bertha Moss, Jacqueline Andere, Jose Baviera, Augusto Benedico, Luis Beristain"Luis Bu&uel&s ferociously brilliant The Exterminating Angel is one of his most provocative and unforgettable works. In it we watch a trivial breach of etiquette transform into the destruction of civilization. Not only does this story undermine our confidence in our social institutions but it challenges our powers of cognition and perception, which are shown to be easily distorted by unreliable narratives. Perhaps most threatening, despite the emotional distance from the characters that Bu&uel&s satiric vision grants us, we are ultimately forced to see that we in the audience are also objects of his attack." - Selected by Jean-Claude Rousseau, , Andrew Tracy, Carmen Gray, David Flint. /
1999 / USA-UK / 159m / Col / Marriage Drama, Psychological DramaTom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Madison Eginton, Marie Richardson, Rade Serbedzija, Vinessa Shaw, Todd Field, Alan Cumming, LeeLee Sobieski"Eyes Wide Shut epitomizes Kubrick's commendable and audacious willingness to venture into unexplored territory and risk making a fool of himself. Like Crash and Blue Velvet, two similarly fearless, sexually transgressive but ultimately moralistic films that straddled the fine line between genius and lunacy, Eyes Wide Shut is above all a masterpiece of sustained tone, a tightrope act that pays off in rich and unexpected ways& As deceptively simple as an Aesop fable, and as haunting and enigmatic as a half-remembered dream, Eyes Wide Shut is a towering final achievement from one of cinema's greatest innovators." - Selected by Adrian Martin, Kent Jones, Craig Keller, , Amy Berg. /
Les Yeux sans visage (original title)
1960 / France-Italy / 88m / BW / Horror, Gothic FilmPierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Edith Scob, Francois Guerin, Juliette Mayniel, Beatrice Altariba, Alexandre Rignault, Rene Genin, Claude Brasseur, Michel Etcheverry"An incredible amalgam of horror and fairytale in which scalpels thud into quivering flesh and the tremulous heroine (Scob) remains a prisoner of solitude in a waxen mask of eerie, frozen beauty& Illuminated throughout by Franju's unique sense of poetry - nowhere more evident than in the final shot of Scob wandering free through the night, her mask discarded but her face seen only by the dogs at her feet and the dove on her shoulder - it's a marvellous movie in the fullest sense." - Selected by Mark Kermode, Ed Park, Gr&inne Humphreys, Paul Mayersberg, Peter Strickland. /
V&rit&s et mensonges (original title)
1973 / France-Iran-West Germany / 85m / Col / Avant-garde-Experimental, Essay FilmOrson Welles, Oja Kodar, Elmyr de Hory, Joseph Cotten, Francois Reichenbach, Richard Wilson, Paul Stewart, Clifford Irving, Edith Irving, Laurence Harvey"Orson Welles's underrated 1973 essay film&made from discarded documentary footage by Francois Reichenbach and new material from Welles&forms a kind of dialectic with Welles's never-completed It's All True. The main subjects are art forger Elmyr de Hory, Clifford Irving, Howard Hughes, Pablo Picasso, Welles himself, and the practice and meaning of deception& Alternately superficial and profound, the film also enlists the services of Oja Kodar, Welles's principal collaborator after the late 60s, as actor, erotic spectacle, and cowriter, and briefer appearances by many other Welles cohorts." - Selected by Richard Combs, Arthur Mas, &Angel Quintana Morraja, Dan Fainaru, Edgar P&ra. /
1968 / USA / 130m / BW / Marriage Drama, Psychological DramaJohn Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery, Dorothy Gulliver, Joanne Moore Jordan, Darlene Conley, Gene Darfler"The disintegration of a marriage is dissected in John Cassavetes& searing Faces. Shot in high-contrast 16 mm black and white, the film follows the futile attempts of captain of industry Richard (Marley) and his wife, Maria (Carlin), to escape the anguish of their empty marriage in the arms of others. Featuring astonishingly powerful, nervy performances from Marley, Carlin, and Cassavetes regulars Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel, Faces confronts suburban alienation and the battle of the sexes with a brutal honesty and compassion rarely matched in cinema." - Selected by , Ray Carney, , Violeta Kovacsics, Ain-Ling Wong. /
Fanny och Alexander (original title)Top 100 Film
1982 / Sweden / 189m / Col / Family Drama, Childhood DramaGunn Wallgren, Jarl Kulle, Erland Josephson, Allan Edwall, Jan Malmsjo, Harriet Andersson, Bertil Guve, Mats Bergman, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Kristina Adolphson"Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden. Ingmar Bergman intended Fanny and Alexander as his swan song, and it is the legendary director&s warmest and most autobiographical film, a four-time Academy Award&winning triumph that combines his trademark melancholy and emotional intensity with immense joy and sensuality." - Selected by , , Esteve Riambau, Kent Jones, . /
1940 / USA / 120m / Col / Animated Musical, Children's FantasyDeems Taylor, Leopold Stokowski, The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, Walt Disney, Julietta Novis, James MacDonald, Paul J. Smith"While it may not have been popular in its day, Fantasia has endured, transporting generations of pen and ink patrons into an unheard of realm of imagination and invention. From the abstractions of Bach&s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to the ostrich/hippo/alligator ballet dancers of Ponchielli&s Dance of the Hours, Disney&s flare for illustrative finery mixed with conductor Leopold Stokowski&s sumptuous soundscapes is a true masterpiece& It&s a work that actually stretches beyond the limits of description to become something unique and timeless.& - Selected by , Marco Dutra, Nicolas Barbano, Nicoletta Romeo, Fritz G&ttler. /
Ba wang bie ji (original title)
1993 / Hong Kong-China / 155m / Col / Drama, Romantic EpicLeslie Cheung, Zhang Fengyi, Gong Li, Lu Qi, Ying Da, Ge You, Li Chun, Lei Han, Tong Di, Ma Mingwei"Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine, the Chinese epic that has proved so troublesome to the Communist authorities at home, is one of those very rare film spectacles that deliver just about everything the ads are likely to promise: action, history, exotic color, multitudes in confrontation, broad overviews of social and political landscapes, all intimately rooted in a love story of vicious intensity, the kind that plays best when it goes badly, which is most of the time." - Selected by Pam Cook, Ahmed Atef, Fu Hongxing, Xiaoning Lu, David Robinson. /
1996 / USA / 98m / Col / Crime, Black ComedyFrances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, William H. Macy, Harve Presnell, Kristin Rudrud, John Carroll Lynch, Steve Reevis, Larry Brandenburg, Jose Feliciano"The Coens are at their clever best with this snowbound film noir, a crazily mundane crime story set in their native Midwest. Purportedly based on real events, it brings them as close as they may ever come - not very - to everyday life and ordinary people. Perversely, the frozen north even brings out some uncharacteristic warmth in these coolly cerebral filmmakers, although anyone seeking the milk of human kindness would be well advised to look elsewhere. The Coens' outlook remains as jaundiced as it was in Blood Simple, the razor-sharp 1984 debut feature that the much more stylish and entertaining Fargo brings to mind." - Selected by , , Philip Kemp, Jerry Rothwell, Roberto Manassero.See also . /
1965 / USA / 83m / BW / Sexploitation, Action ComedyTura Satana, Haji, Lori Williams, Susan Bernard, Stuart Lancaster, Paul Trinka, Dennis Busch, Ray Barlow, Mickey Foxx, John Furlong"A cross-breed of girl-gang movies with the brand of rural gothic that would lead to Deliverance and The Hills Have Eyes, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is arguably as much an outrageous parody of the trash-exploitation film as it is a drive-in barnstormer& With its driving jazz score, hilarious dialogue and overdrive melodramatics, this is the ultimate expression of the American cinema's greatest fetishes: big breasts, fast cars, tight jeans, and sudden death. This is, in its own way, one of the great films of the 60's." - Selected by , David Flint, Helen Dewitt, Jane Giles, Philip Ilson. /
1972 / USA / 100m / Col / Drama, Sports DramaStacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell, Candy Clark, Nicholas Colasanto, Art Aragon, Curtis Cokes, Sixto Rodriguez, Billy Walker, Wayne Mahan"Marvellous, grimly downbeat study of desperate lives and the escape routes people construct for themselves, stunningly shot by Conrad Hall. The setting is Stockton, California, a dreary wasteland of smoky bars and sunbleached streets where the lives of two boxers briefly meet, one on the way up, one on the way down& Huston directs with the same puritanical rigour he brought to Wise Blood. Beautifully summed up by Paul Taylor as a 'masterpiece of skid row poetry'." - Selected by Steve Buscemi, Jamie Thraves, , Alberto Rodr&guez, . /
Top 25 of the 1960s1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)2. 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)3. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)4. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)5. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)6. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)7. La Dolce vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)8. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)9. Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)10. L& Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)11. Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)12. Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)13. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)14. The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)15. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)16. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)17. Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)18. The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965)19. Viridiana (Luis Bu&uel, 1961)20. The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)21. Gertrud (Carl Dreyer, 1964)22. Jules et Jim (Fran&ois Truffaut, 1961)23. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)24. Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)25. Blowup (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966) Faust - Eine deutsche Volkssage (original title)
1926 / Germany / 116m / BW / Fantasy, TragedyEmil Jannings, Gosta Ekman, Camilla Horn, Eric Barclay, Hans Brausewetter, William Dieterle, Werner Fuetterer, Yvette Guilbert, Lothar Muthel, Frida Richard"The great F.W. Murnau directed only one real blockbuster in Germany, just before coming to America to make his masterpiece, Sunrise; extravagant in every sense, Faust is laden with references to Dutch, German, and Italian painting and was rivaled only by
Metropolis in driving the UFA studio toward bankruptcy. Like
2001: A Space Odyssey, this extraordinary piece of artistry and craftsmanship integrates its dazzling special effects so seamlessly that they're indistinguishable from the film's narrative, poetry, and, above all, metaphysics." - Selected by Pierre Rissient, Shinji Aoyama, M&ns M&nsson, Michael Koller, Noel Vera. /
Satyricon (alternative title); Fellini's Satyricon (alternative title)
1969 / Italy / 129m / Col / Drama, Period FilmMartin Potter, Hiram Keller, Salvo Randone, Max Born, Mario Romagnoli, Magali Noel, Capucine, Alain Cuny, Fanfulla, Lucia Bose"Satyricon took viewers aback with its sprawling, ambitious, almost expressionistic adaptation of Petronius' Latin prose satire of life under Nero& Fellini clearly spared nothing in translating his vision to film, and the results are visually remarkable& The director captures the timelessness of Petronius' attack, re-creating a Rome rotten at its core but also conveying that the all-too-human sources of its rottenness&greed, lust, narcissism&are eternal. Viewed as a film about the end of the '60s, when the world seemed ready to collapse, or as a companion piece to La Dolce Vita, Satyricon takes on added resonance. But no matter how you interpret it, it demands to be seen." - Selected by Ahmed Atef, Jurgis Krasons, Maja Bogojevic, Rod Stoneman, . /
Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (original title); Casanova (alternative title)
1976 / Italy / 158m / Col / Comedy Drama, Period FilmDonald Sutherland, Tina Aumont, Cicely Browne, Carmen Scarpitta, Clara Algranti, Olimpia Carlisi, Adele Angela Lojodice, Clarissa Mary Roil, Daniel Emilfork, Margaret Clementi"Vainly seeking wealthy patrons for his scholarly pursuits, Casanova is seen as both an intellectual figure of the Enlightenment and a licentious voluptuary of a corrupt society about to be swept away by the French Revolution... The semi-coherent, death-obsessed narrative reeks of self-disgust and has the clammy atmosphere of an undertaker's embalming room. Made entirely on fabulous Cinecitt& sets, it's superbly photographed and magnificently staged and Sutherland (who hated the experience) is a compelling presence." - Selected by Michel Ciment, Michel Chion, , , Elijah Guller. /
Roma (original title)
1972 / Italy / 128m / Col / Satire, Ensemble FilmPeter Gonzales, Fiona Florence, Marne Maitland, Britta Barnes, Pia De Doses, Renato Giovannoli, Elisa Mainardi, Anna Magnani, Federico Fellini, Gore Vidal"An imaginative, highly personal travelogue and essay film by Federico Fellini, one of his best works of this period. It features the filmmaker roaming around the Eternal City with his crew, musing about the recent and distant historical past, running into old chums and acquaintances (such as Anna Magnani and Gore Vidal), and occasionally indulging some flamboyant conceits for their own sake (e.g., the memorable ecclesiastical fashion show). As usual with Fellini, especially from the 70s on, spectacle tends to be everything." - Selected by Dominique Martinez, Edgar P&ra, Paulino Viota, , Saul Metzstein. /
A Woman is a Woman (English title)
1961 / France / 83m / Col / Romantic Comedy, Musical ComedyAnna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Claude Brialy, Nicole Paquin, Marie Dubois, Marion Sarraut, Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Demongeot, Noel Pacquin, Ernest Menzer"With A Woman Is a Woman, compulsively innovative director Jean-Luc Godard presents &a neorealist musical&that is, a contradiction in terms.& Featuring French superstars Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Jean-Claude Brialy at their peak of popularity, A Woman Is a Woman is a sly, playful tribute to&and interrogation of&the American musical comedy, showcasing Godard&s signature wit and intellectual acumen& A dizzying compendium of color, humor, and the music of renowned composer Michel Legrand, A Woman Is a Woman finds the young Godard at his warmest and most accessible, reveling in and scrutinizing the mechanics of his great obsession: the cinema." - Selected by Antonia Quirke, Francesco Pitassio, , Law Wai-ming, Isobel Knowles. /
1986 / USA / 103m / Col / Comedy, Teen MovieMatthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones, Jennifer Grey, Cindy Pickett, Lyman Ward, Edie McClurg, Charlie Sheen, Ben Stein"In The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, Hughes portrayed adolescent angst in a fairly realistic light. But from the moment Ferris turns to the camera to address the audience, we know that realism is out. Ferris and his adventures represent a teen's dream of glory: to have, at one's fingertips, the technical skills to sabotage the adult world's machinery of oppression and, at the tip of one's tongue, the perfect squelch for grownups' moralistic blather. Here is a dream as old as adolescence, and it is fun to be reminded of its ageless potency, especially in a movie as good-hearted as this one." - Selected by , Henry K. Miller, Marcelo Panozzo, Danny Cannon, David Ondaatje. /
The Celebration (English title)
1998 / Denmark / 105m / Col / Ensemble Film, Family DramaHenning Moritzen, Ulrich Thomsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Paprika Steen, Birthe Neumann, Trine Dyrholm, Helle Dolleris, Therese Glahn, Klaus Bondam, Bjarne Henriksen"Though it dedicates itself to avoiding directorial egotism, in accordance with strict rules of the Danish filmmakers' collective known as Dogma 95, Thomas Vinterberg's Celebration is still a virtuoso feat& The Celebration, which easily accommodates allusions to both Cries and Whispers and The Godfather, features a large, credible cast all over the hotel, from patrician guests to flirtatious waitresses to Helene's American boyfriend (a black man whose presence brings out the considerable worst in this family) to a kitchen staff bent on settling old scores. They and Vinterberg succeed dizzyingly well in making this a party to remember." - Selected by Destin Daniel Cretton, , , Craig Brewer, Angelina Nikonova. /
1999 / USA-Germany / 139m / Col / Satire, Psychological DramaBrad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, Jared Leto, Zach Grenier, Eion Bailey, Ezra Buzzington, Richmond Arquette, Joel Bissonnette"The sardonic, testosterone-fueled science fiction of Fight Club touches a raw nerve. In a film as strange and single-mindedly conceived as Eyes Wide Shut, Fincher's angry, diffidently witty ideas about contemporary manhood unfold. As based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk (and deftly written by Jim Uhls), it builds a huge, phantasmagorical structure around the search for lost masculine authority, and attempts to psychoanalyze an entire society in the process& This film twists and turns in ways that only add up fully on the way out of the theater and might just require another viewing." - Selected by , Dana Linssen, , Jos& Padilha, Duncan Jones. /
2003 / USA / 100m / Col / Family-Oriented Comedy, Animation, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, Austin Pendleton, Geoffrey Rush, Andrew Stanton, Elizabeth Perkins"Finding Nemo has all of the usual pleasures of the Pixar animation style--the comedy and wackiness of Toy Story or Monsters Inc. or A Bug's Life. And it adds an unexpected beauty, a use of color and form that makes it one of those rare movies where I wanted to sit in the front row and let the images wash out to the edges of my field of vision. The movie takes place almost entirely under the sea, in the world of colorful tropical fish--the flora and fauna of a shallow warm-water shelf not far from Australia. The use of color, form and movement make the film a delight even apart from its story." - Selected by Destin Daniel Cretton, Omer M. Mozaffar, , , Kristian Lin.See also . / No votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll /
Hor&, m& panenko (original title); The Fireman's Ball (UK title)
1967 / Czechoslovakia / 73m / Col / Comedy, SatireJan Vostrcil, Josef Kolb, Josef Svet, Josef Sebanek, Josef Valnoha, Frantisek Debelka, Jan Stockl, Vratislav Cermak, Josef Rehorek, Vaclav Novotny"A milestone of the Czech New Wave, Milos Forman&s first color film The Firemen&s Ball is both a dazzling comedy and a provocative political satire. A hilarious saga of good intentions confounded, the story chronicles a firemen&s ball where nothing goes right&from a beauty pageant whose reluctant participants embarrass the organizers to a lottery from which nearly all the prizes are pilfered. Presumed to be a commentary on the floundering Czech leadership, the film was &banned forever& in Czechoslovakia following the Russian invasion and prompted Forman&s move to America." - Selected by , Pavel Jech, , , . /
I Was a Fireman (alternative title)
1943 / UK / 80m / BW / Military & War, DocumentaryPhilip Dickson, George Gravett, Fred Griffiths, Johnny Houghton, Loris Rey"Jennings' one venture into feature-length drama-documentary narrowly escaped being brutally chopped down by the publicity men at the Ministry of Information. Certainly it lacks the tight narrative structure common in good commercial films, but Jennings is a strong enough film-maker to ignore formulae and conventions to build his own unique structures& It is the epic quality of the firemen's struggle that excites Jennings, and his celebration of the courage and dignity of ordinary people working together in the shadow of disaster makes the film extraordinarily impressive." - Selected by Kevin Jackson, Tom Vincent, , Philip Dodd, Enno Patalas. /
1982 / West Germany / 157m / Col / Adventure Drama, Jungle FilmKlaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, Jose Lewgoy, Miguel Angel Fuentes, Paul Hittscher, Huerequeque Bohorquez, Grande Otelo, Peter Berling, David Perez Espinosa, Milton Nascimento"Werner Herzog's most ambitious film divides audiences between those who laud its astonishing portrait of obsession and its insightful commentary on the absurdity of ambition and those who complain that it is a sterile, loud, boring journey to nowhere. There is, however, no denying the visual and technical magnificence of Herzog's achievement, as the jungle scenes have a palpable sense of authenticity, and those poor natives really DID haul that boat over a mountain. - Selected by Rupert Wyatt, , Laurie Anderson, Kleber Mendon&a Filho, Massimo Causo. /
1970 / USA / 98m / Col / Drama, Road MovieJack Nicholson, Karen Black, Lois Smith, Billy Green Bush, Susan Anspach, Helena Kallianiotes, William Challee, Fannie Flagg, Sally Struthers, Marlena MacGuire"Following Jack Nicholson&s breakout supporting turn in Easy Rider, director Bob Rafelson devised a powerful leading role for the new star in the searing character study Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson plays the now iconic cad Bobby Dupea, a shiftless thirtysomething oil rigger and former piano prodigy immune to any sense of romantic or familial responsibility, who returns to his childhood home to see his ailing, estranged father, blue-collar girlfriend (Black) in tow. Moving in its simplicity and gritty in its textures, Five Easy Pieces is a lasting example of early 1970s American alienation." - Selected by Andrew Haigh, Angelina Nikonova, B&lint Szal&ky, Ben Gibson, Mirsad Purivatra. /
1963 / USA / 43m / BW / Avant-garde-Experimental, HorrorJoel Markman, Mario Montez"Forget everything you might have heard about Jack Smith's legendary bisexual, orgiastic, superlow-budget experimental masterpiece&a lot more is going on here, artistically and otherwise& This jubilant, celebratory film hol despite its notoriety and censorship during the 60s, it's more than just an orgy of nude and seminude male, female, and transvestite bodies. The camera and even the cheap hothouse decor participate in the joyful free-for-all, suggesting both the privacy of a
wet dream and the collective force of a delirious apocalypse. But the simplest way to describe it is to call it a vision." - Selected by J. Hoberman, Elo&sa Solaas, Klaus Wyborny, , Shanay Jhaveri. /
Ukigumo (original title)
1955 / Japan / 123m / BW / Drama, Urban DramaHideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Mariko Okada, Isao Yamagata, Chieko Nakakita, Daisuke Kato, Mayuri Mokusho, Roy H. James, Haruna Kaburagi, Nobuo Kaneko"Mikio Naruse belongs with
in the great classical tradition of Japanese cinema& Floating Clouds, which was a huge popular success in Japan and remains his best-loved film today, tells of a young woman's determined love for a man she k the film piles betrayal upon betrayal, but her hope is never shaken. Naruse's visual style is austere to the p his meanings are contained in his actors' faces and in his distinctive dovetailing of dramatic incidents, a narrative pattern that allows his characters no rest, but affords a strange peace in its constancy." - Selected by , Chris Fujiwara, Jean Narboni, Adrian Martin, . /
Ukikusa (original title)
1959 / Japan / 119m / Col / Drama, Reunion FilmGanjiro Nakamura, Machiko Kyo, Ayako Wakao, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Haruko Sugimura, Hikaru Hoshi, Yosuke Irie, Koji Mitsui, Hitomi Nozoe, Chishu Ryu"Subtle, lyrical, and delicately bittersweet, Floating Weeds offers an excellent introduction to the cinema of Yasujiro Ozu&one of the greatest of all Japanese filmmakers& From the first shot, comically juxtaposing a lighthouse (background) with a sake bottle (foreground), to the last one of a train swiftly moving over a nighttime landscape, it&s plain we&re in the hands of a filmmaker whose prime concern is understatement and overtone. Rather than rush to the heat of a &big& dramatic moment, Ozu concentrates on the warmth of &small& ones. In scene after scene the way the characters walk, sit, stand, and speak is scrupulously observed." - Selected by , Duane Hopkins, Paulino Viota, , Yung Chang. /
Hai shang hua (original title)
1998 / Taiwan / 130m / Col / Romantic Drama, Period FilmShuan Fang, Michiko Hada, Annie Shizuka Inoh, Jack Kao, Carina Lau, Tony Leung, Rebecca Pan, Michele Reis, Vicky Wei"The world of Flowers of Shanghai, Hou Hsiao-hsien's rapturously claustrophobic, hypnotic, and soporific new movie, there is no outside, no night or day, and the people are all witty, well-dressed, and awful. It's like 120 Days of Sodom without the sodomy, a Merchant Ivory film as conceived by Samuel Beckett& With Shanghai, his first genuine period picture, Hou has refined realism into the ultimate artifice, has demonstrated that the elusive bloom of love that persists in all his bleak melodramas is inevitably crushed by our elaborate means of possessing it." - Selected by John Powers, Manohla Dargis, Florence Almozini, Justin Chang, Nathan Lee. /
Francesco, giullare di Dio (original title); Francis, God's Jester (alternative title)
1950 / Italy / 83m / BW / Religious Drama, BiographyAldo Fabrizi, Brother Nazario Gerardi, Arabella Lemaitre, Gianfranco Bellini, Pino Locchi, Peparuolo, Fra' Severino Pisacane, Roberto Sorrentino"In a series of simple and joyous vignettes, director Roberto Rossellini and co-writer
lovingly convey the universal teachings of the People&s Saint: humility, compassion, faith, and sacrifice. Gorgeously photographed to evoke the medieval paintings of Saint Francis&s time, and cast with monks from the Nocera Inferiore Monastery, The Flowers of St. Francis is a timeless and moving portrait of the search for spiritual enlightenment." - Selected by , Manohla Dargis, Dan Callahan, Andrew Tracy, Mat&as Pi&eiro. /
1986 / USA / 100m / Col / Science Fiction, HorrorJeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Joy Boushel, Les Carlson, George Chuvalo, David Cronenberg, Michael Copeman, Carol Lazare, Shawn Hewitt"'What am I working on? I'm working on something that will change the world and human life as we know it!' So Seth Brundle (Goldblum) promises in the opening line of Cronenberg's inspired remake& This is a film about fusion. That of man and insect, but also the emotional and physical fusion between man and woman - liberating and painful as that may be. The playful, quirky chemistry between Goldblum and Davis in the first half of the movie ensures that this gothic horror is heartbreaking as well as stomach-churning (the special effects by Chris Walas are still staggering)." - Selected by Neill Blomkamp, , Kleber Mendon&a Filho, C&neyt Cebenoyan, Alain Guiraudie. /
1922 / USA / 117m / BW / DramaErich von Stroheim, Maude George, Mae Busch, Rudolph Christians, Miss DuPont, Dale Fuller, Al Edmundsen, Cesare Gravina, Malvina Polo, Louis K. Webb"At the time of its release, Foolish Wives was the most expensive film ever produced, and though Von Stroheim was widely considered a lavish spendthrift, his films remain triumphs of period detail. The film features the most daring intertitles in the history of silent cinema, and Von Stroheim uses their stream-of-conscious nature to enhance the film's startling aesthetic shifts and to point to the politics at work throughout the narrative& Foolish Wives is a seductive film, but it's also supremely sad because Von Stroheim sees something morally and emotionally debilitating in the way his characters forcibly cling to facades." - Selected by , Jes&s Piquero, Martial Pisani, Carlos Garcia Brusco, Nagaharu Yodogawa. /
Jeux interdits (original title)
1952 / France / 87m / BW / Childhood Drama, War DramaBrigitte Fossey, Georges Poujouly, Lucien Hubert, Suzanne Courtal, Jacques Marin, Laurence Badie, Andre Wasley, Amedee, Denise Pereonne, Louis Sainteve"For English-speaking audiences, Forbidden Games remains one of the two or three most important French films of the pre-New Wave era. Under Cl&ment's direction, the two children are inestimably fresher and more engaging than almost any other child actors of the time. But beyond its immediate appeal, Forbidden Games remains important as an early conjunction of the realist style of director Ren& Cl&ment on the one side and the "cinema of quality" of the Aurenche/Bost script on the other. A tension is created by the film's hesitation between social allegory and anthropology and between a natural and a prettified style." - Selected by , , , Desir&e de Fez, Pedro Olea. / No votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll /
1956 / USA / 98m / Col / Science Fiction, Space AdventureWalter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Richard Anderson, Earl Holliman, James Drury, George Wallace, Robert Dix"By the time Forbidden Planet hit theaters in 1956, aliens, robots, and strange worlds had become commonplace, thanks to B-movies, pulps, and comic books. So how did it become the touchstone science-fiction film of its decade? It thought big. Here was outer space as only the lavish production values of MGM could imagine it, a journey to an alien landscape painted in bold Eastmancolor and stretched across a CinemaScope frame. But it also thought small. Forbidden Planet's characters travel to the far reaches of space to discover boundaries that remain in place no matter where you go. The mind may climb to the stars, but it's hard to shake the beast within." - Selected by , John A. Russo, William Malone, Gerard Langlois, . / No votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll /
Top 25 of the 1970s1. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)2. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)3. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)4. The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)5. The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)6. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)7. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)8. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)9. Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1973)10. A. Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)11. The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)12. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)13. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)14. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)15. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)16. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)17. A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974)18. Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)19. The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973)20. The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)21. Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)22. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)23. Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)24. Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)25. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
1994 / USA / 142m / Col / Comedy Drama, AmericanaTom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Sally Field, Mykelti Williamson, Rebecca Williams, Michael Humphreys, Harold Herthum, George Kelly, Bob Penny"Forrest Gump is a movie heart-breaker of oddball wit and startling grace& Taking a cue from Zelig, director Robert Zemeckis places Forrest (Hanks) in a vivid historical context & he talks with JFK, LBJ and Nixon, among other luminaries. The effects dazzle, though never at the expense of the story& Zemeckis doesn't fall into the trap of using Forrest as an ad for arrested development. He knows the limits of a holy fool who can't understand the hypocrisy of postwar America that this picaresque epic so powerfully reveals. The peace-love pretensions of the '60s are skewered as neatly as the greed decades that follow." - Selected by , Jan Svěr&k, Jos& Padilha, Jurgis Krasons, . /
1948 / USA / 127m / BW / Western, Cavalry FilmHenry Fonda, John Wayne, Shirley Temple, Pedro Armendariz, Ward Bond, George O'Brien, Victor McLaglen, Anna Lee, Irene Rich, John Agar"The first film of John Ford's &cavalry trilogy&, this marked the beginning of his greatest (and most critically obscure) period. Its dual heroes (Henry Fonda as a West Point martinet and John Wayne as a veteran horse soldier) express Ford's growing ambivalence toward the values and practice of leadership. The nonlinear narrative, with its infinite digressions and asides, is designed less to tell a story than to present a world&a world dense in physical detail and fraught with moral challenges. With Fort Apache, Ford finally withdrew from the Oscar race and entered his own individual aesthetic, isolating himself in the glories and eccentricities of a great artist." - Selected by Francisco Algar&n Navarro, Piers Handling, Ruy Gardnier, Benito Zambrano, Pedro Butcher. /
1933 / USA / 89m / BW / Backstage Musical, Musical ComedyWarner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Una Merkel, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ginger Rogers, George E. Stone, Robert McWade"Reviving the musical's fortunes in one fell swoop, Bacon and Busby Berkeley's backstage saga set the benchmark for the putting-on-a-show subgenre not by means of plot (a thin and hackneyed affair about a young understudy finding stardom when she covers for the temperamental diva) but through sassy songs and dialogue and dazzling mise-en-sc&ne. A grand cast makes the most of numbers like 'You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me', 'Shuffle Off to Buffalo' and 'Young and Healthy', while Berkeley choreographs chorines and camera with mischievous dexterity." - Selected by , , , , Riyad Vinci Wadia. / No votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll /
The Loyal 47 Ronin (alternative title); Genroku Ch&shingura (original title)
1941 / Japan / 219m / BW / Historical Film, Samurai FilmUtaemon Ichikawa, Isamu Kosugi, Mieko Takamine, Yoshizaburo Arashi, Chojuro Kawarasaki, Kunitaro Kawarasaki, Seizaburo Kawazu, Mintayo Mimasu, Mitsuko Miura, Kanemon Nakamura"Made during the work-up to war, Mizoguchi's retelling of the traditional tale of the four dozen loyal feudal samurai who, in 1700, avenged the clan lord Asano's death is concerned with the place and meaning of the Bushido warrior code, which was in decline after 70 years of peace. An immense popular success, the film was approved by the propaganda authority and at near four hours may strain viewers not unduly interested in military ethics. Lovers of Mizoguchi, however, will marvel at the technical accomplishment, the elegance of compositional line and camera movement, and note the relegation of battle to reported speech and the concentration on human drama." - Selected by Fred Camper, Kaushik Bhaumik, Santos Zunzunegui, Gilberto Perez, . /
Les Quatre cents coups (original title); The Four Hundred Blows (alternative spelling) Top 100 Film
1959 / France / 99m / BW / Childhood Drama, Coming-of-AgeJean-Pierre Leaud, Albert Remy, Claire Maurier, Guy Decomble, Patrick Auffay, Georges Flamant, Yvonne Claudie, Robert Beauvais, Claude Mansard, Jacques Monod"Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows is one of the most intensely touching stories ever made about a young adolescent. Inspired by Truffaut's own early life, it shows a resourceful boy growing up in Paris and apparently dashing headlong into a life of crime& The later films have their own merits, and Stolen Kisses is one of Truffaut's best, but The 400 Blows, with all its simplicity and feeling, is in a class by itself. It was Truffaut's first feature, and one of the founding films of the French New Wave. We sense that it was drawn directly out of Truffaut's heart." - Selected by , Sukhdev Sandhu, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Leonardo Garc&a Tsao, Patrick McGilligan. /
4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile (original title)
2007 / Romania-Netherlands-France-Germany / 113m / Col / Drama, Slice of LifeAnamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov, Alexandru Potocean, Ion Sapdaru, Teodor Corban, Tania Popa, Cerasela Iosifescu, Luminata Gheorghiu, Adi Carauleanu"Cristian Mungiu's film is a nightmare of social-realist suspense, a jewel of what it is now considered the Romanian new wave, along with Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr Lazarescu and Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest. In more general terms, it is part of that emerging 21st-century phenomenon, ordeal cinema: a cinema that with great formal technique makes you live through a horrendous experience in what seems like real time. As a drama, it is superbly observed and telling in yet it is also simply as exciting, in its stomach-turning way, as any thriller." - Selected by , Mania Akbari, Jeon Chanil, James Franco, Ognjen Svilicic.See also . /
1949 / USA / 114m / BW / Drama, Psychological DramaGary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Kent Smith, Robert Douglas, Henry Hull, Ray Collins, Moroni Olsen, Jerome Cowan, Paul Harvey"King Vidor turned Ayn Rand's preposterous &philosophical& novel into one of his finest and most personal films, mainly by pushing the phallic imagery so hard that it surpasses Rand's rightist diatribes and even camp (&I wish I'd never seen your skyscraper!&), entering some uncharted dimension where melodrama and metaphysics exist side by side. The images have a dynamism, a spatial tension, that comes partly from Frank Lloyd Wright (whose life Rand appropriated for her novel) and partly from , yet the pattern of their deployment is Vidor's own: the emotions rise and fall in broad, operatic movements that are unmistakably sexual and irresistibly involving." - Selected by Slavoj Zizek, Wong Sui-kei, , Mark Savage, . /
1931 / USA / 70m / BW / Horror, Monster FilmBoris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Edward Van Sloan, Dwight Frye, Frederick Kerr, Lionel Belmore, Michael Mark, Marilyn Harris"A stark, solid, impressively stylish film, overshadowed (a little unfairly) by the later explosion of Whale's wit in the delirious Bride of Frankenstein. Karloff gives one of the great performances of all time as the monster whose mutation from candour to chill savagery is mirrored only through his limpid eyes. The film's great imaginative coup is to show the monster 'growing up' in all too human terms& The film is unique in Whale's work in that the horror is played absolutely straight, and it has a weird fairytale beauty not matched until
made La Belle et la B&te." - Selected by , , , Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, . /
1932 / USA / 64m / BW / Melodrama, Psychological ThrillerHarry Earles, Olga Baclanova, Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Henry Victor, Daisy Earles, Roscoe Ates, Rose Dione, Daisy Hilton, Violet Hilton"Freaks uses authentic circus performers and unapologetically exploits their real genetic malformations in a melodramatic masterpiece of black comic horror. A scheming trapeze artist marries a circus
his fellow performers welcome her as an honorary "freak" and their chanting ritual - gabba gabba, one of us! - left me gasping& What cultural references are there for this? Poe? David Lynch? Antonin Artaud? Diane Arbus? Maybe. Freaks is f it offers a premonition of eugenics, as well as a provocative comparison with th