The On-Line Review Presents: The 50 Greatest Films
Iain Stott of The On-Line Review is asking critics and film-lovers to compile lists of their choices for the "fifty greatest films". For my own purposes, I made this as much of a balance as possible between personal favorites and - as near as anyone can objectively tell such a thing - the actual "best" films I've seen. Many that I weren't able to include damn near broke my heart; apologies, in no particular order, to James Cameron, Charlie Chaplin, Sergio Leone, Luis Buñuel, Dario Argento, Michael Mann, Milos Forman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Jonathan Demme, F.W. Murnau, Quentin Tarantino, Abbas Kiarostami, James Whale, Harold Ramis, Sophia Coppola, Hiroshi Shimizu, Peter Jackson, and many more. I'd rather not have anyone think of this as a definitive selection, but rather an in-the-moment representation of the works that I consider most important and influential to myself (even then, I'd probably have had to include another 50 just to cover all the essentials). Below is my photo essay top ten, followed by 40 unranked honorable mentions.
2. Ikiru (1952, Akira Kurosawa)
3. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971, Robert Altman)
4. Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
5. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
6. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972, Werner Herzog)
7. The Searchers (1954, John Ford)
9. Breaking the Waves (1996, Lars Von Trier)
10. Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, Steven Spielberg)
All That Jazz (1979, Bob Fosse)
Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)
Bad Lieutenant (1992, Abel Ferrara)
Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)
Brazil (1985, Terry Gilliam)
Broken Blossoms (1919, D.W. Griffith)
Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)
Come and See (1985, Elem Klimov)
Crash (1996, David Cronenberg)
The Crowd (1928, King Vidor)
Days of Heaven (1978, Terrence Malick)
Do the Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee)
Dumbo (1941, Ben Sharpsteen)
Faust (1926, F.W. Murnau)
Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)
The Fly (1986, David Cronenberg)
Fury (1936, Fritz Lang)
Go West (1925, Buster Keaton)
The Godfather: Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
GoodFellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990, Joe Dante)
In a Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray)
In the Mood for Love (2000, Wong Kar-wai)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, Martin Scorsese)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch)
Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock)
Scarface (1983, Brian De Palma)
Scenes from a Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman)
Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa)
Showgirls (1995, Paul Verhoeven)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, F.W. Murnau)
Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948, John Huston)
Vampyr (1932, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Click here to see my page at The On-Line Review
All That Jazz (1979, Bob Fosse)
Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)
Bad Lieutenant (1992, Abel Ferrara)
Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)
Brazil (1985, Terry Gilliam)
Broken Blossoms (1919, D.W. Griffith)
Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)
Come and See (1985, Elem Klimov)
Crash (1996, David Cronenberg)
The Crowd (1928, King Vidor)
Days of Heaven (1978, Terrence Malick)
Do the Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee)
Dumbo (1941, Ben Sharpsteen)
Faust (1926, F.W. Murnau)
Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)
The Fly (1986, David Cronenberg)
Fury (1936, Fritz Lang)
Go West (1925, Buster Keaton)
The Godfather: Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
GoodFellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990, Joe Dante)
In a Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray)
In the Mood for Love (2000, Wong Kar-wai)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, Martin Scorsese)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch)
Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock)
Scarface (1983, Brian De Palma)
Scenes from a Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman)
Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa)
Showgirls (1995, Paul Verhoeven)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, F.W. Murnau)
Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948, John Huston)
Vampyr (1932, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Click here to see my page at The On-Line Review
Labels: lists, screen caps
You forgot to apologize to Peter Jackson....
Anyway great list, nice to see titles like "Come and See" and "Fury" on there.
Posted by
Stefan Vlahov |
2:57 AM
You're right - I've amended that gross oversight. I'm surprised that was left out, given that Lord of the Rings was on my shortlist and I tried to at least name every director who ultimately didn't have a film of theirs make the list.
Posted by
rob humanick |
9:33 AM
Showgirls and Scarface? Really??
Posted by
TheSpecialist |
11:42 AM