I just posted a list of my ten favorite films and directors on The Cinematheque web site and thought I would torture everyone else by posting them here as well. Mind you this is a very reductive and painful exercise, but I am a list-loving geek. I won’t detail the exact criteria that were used to compile this list, other than to say that both quality and entertainment value were considered (understandably, some might argue that they are one in the same). I’ve also limited the films so that each director is only represented once.Films
1. L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
2. Close-up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
3. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
4. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
5. Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1961)
6. The Bicycle Thief (Vitoro De Sica, 1948)
7. To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994)
8. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
9. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
10. Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)
Might have made the list on another day of the week:
**Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
**2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
**Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)
(I am also conscious of the fact that these are all ‘Talkies’… sue me, there are only ten slots and I used one of them with a musical!)
Directors
- Akira Kurosawa (Japan)
- Jacques Tati (France)
- Alfred Hitchcock (UK)
- Krzysztof Kieslowski (Poland)
- Orson Welles (USA)
- Zhang Yimou (China)
- Abbas Kiarostami (Iran)
- Ingmar Bergman (Sweden)
- Woody Allen (USA)
- Federico Fellini (Italy)
**Stanley Kubrick
**Robert Bresson
**Yasujiro Ozu
I am now open for complaints.
-m
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3 comments:
I posted a list of the best Foreign Films a while back on my site. There is some duplication. Interesting that you've only got two American directors on your top ten. I think that may have something to do with age differences. We once boasted some of the best in the U.S. and I still thinl we have a few that merit a view. Like: Oliver Stone, Tarantino, the Cohen Brothers, Mike Nichols, Ellia Kazan and maybe John Ford?
Thanks for the comment 1000myths.
I'm not sure what 'age differences' means... I'm 29.
Only two from the US? Sure, but there are zero from Germany or Russia, and if there is any injustice in regards to country, I think it would be that there are none from India (which I have lost much sleep over). The fact that there are probably more films produced each year from India alone than the entire rest of the world, is quite daunting.
Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm sorry to say that I wouldn't put Stone, Tarantino, or the Coens in my Top 50 Directors list. That's just me though, and I have my own unique brand of elitism.
-m
THERE ARE TWO GLARING OMISSIONS HERE.
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS AND
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS.
MIKE, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING OF. KUDOS ON REAR WINDOW.
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