I’m
primarily a film historian, but I’ve acted, directed, and even been a critic on
occasion. Some
thoughts on recent cinema here: ShotgunReviews.com
Re-ranking
the Sight and Sound 100
As always with list-making, I’m struck not only by the biases (and other limitations) of film critics, but by my own, which inevitably rear up to haunt me as soon as I contemplate capital-A Art and the arc of film history. That’s why I’m less enthusiastic about this activity than I used to be. After fifty-something years of studying movies and writing about them, the task of making a list of favorites or bests, or critiquing someone else’s, mostly serves to heighten my awareness of how much I don’t know. I’m torn between feeling that I’ve missed the point of some really good films and righteous indignation that the definition of greatness seems to have changed under our feet (even though revealing such change is one of the stated purposes of the S&S poll).
Thus,
when it came to a preferential re-ranking of the 2012 poll, I decided
to make it completely personal, to set aside as much of the critical and
historical noise in my head as I could, remove all pretense to objectivity, and
just rank the movies according to their personal importance to me. Forget where
they should be ranked; frankly, I don’t know.
- Rear Window | Alfred HITCHCOCK | 1954
- Chinatown | Roman POLANSKI | 1974
- Citizen Kane | Orson WELLES | 1941
- The Third Man | Carol REED | 1949
- Wild Strawberries | Ingmar BERGMAN | 1957
- 2001: A Space Odyssey | Stanley KUBRICK | 1968
- The Wild Bunch | Sam PECKINPAH | 1969
- Sunset Blvd. | Billy WILDER | 1950
- Psycho | Alfred HITCHCOCK | 1960
- Seven Samurai | KUROSAWA Akira | 1954
- M | Fritz LANG | 1931
- Lawrence of Arabia | David LEAN | 1962
- Rio Bravo | Howard HAWKS | 1959
- The Seventh Seal | Ingmar BERGMAN | 1957
- Singin' in the Rain | Stanley DONEN & Gene KELLY | 1952
- Battleship Potemkin | Sergei EISENSTEIN | 1925
- La Grande Illusion | Jean RENOIR | 1937
- Greed | Erich VON STROHEIM | 1924
- The Passion of Joan of Arc | Carl Th. DREYER | 1928
- Sherlock Jr. | Buster KEATON | 1924
- Vertigo | Alfred HITCHCOCK | 1958
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans | F.W. MURNAU | 1927
- North by Northwest | Alfred HITCHCOCK | 1959
- Tokyo Story | OZU Yasujirō | 1953
- The Godfather | Francis Ford COPPOLA | 1972
- Barry Lyndon | Stanley KUBRICK | 1975
- Le Mépris | Jean-Luc GODARD | 1963
- City Lights | Charles CHAPLIN | 1931
- La Règle du Jeu | Jean RENOIR | 1939
- Touch of Evil | Orson WELLES | 1958
- Pather Panchali | Satyajit RAY | 1955
- Casablanca | Michael CURTIZ | 1942
- Taxi Driver | Martin SCORSESE | 1976
- Mulholland Dr. | David LYNCH | 2001
- Modern Times | Charles CHAPLIN | 1936
- The General | Clyde BRUCKMAN & Buster KEATON | 1927
- Apocalypse Now | Francis Ford COPPOLA | 1979
- Persona | Ingmar BERGMAN | 1966
- Fanny & Alexander | Ingmar BERGMAN | 1982
- The Searchers | John FORD | 1956
- The Magnificent Ambersons | Orson WELLES | 1942
- Blue Velvet | David LYNCH | 1986
- The Night of the Hunter | Charles LAUGHTON | 1955
- Un Chien Andalou | Luis BUÑUEL | 1929
- Rashomon | KUROSAWA Akira | 1950
- The Godfather: Part II | Francis Ford COPPOLA | 1974
- Intolerance | D.W. GRIFFITH | 1916
- L'Avventura | Michelangelo ANTONIONI | 1960
- Some Like It Hot | Billy WILDER | 1959
- La Jetée | Chris MARKER | 1962
- Nashville | Robert ALTMAN | 1975
- The 400 Blows | François TRUFFAUT | 1959
- A Matter of Life and Death | POWELL & PRESSBURGER | 1946
- Raging Bull | Martin SCORSESE | 1980
- Breathless | Jean-Luc GODARD | 1960
- Once upon a Time in the West | Sergio LEONE | 1968
- Bicycle Thieves | Vittorio DE SICA | 1948
- Metropolis | Fritz LANG | 1927
- The Leopard | Luchino VISCONTI | 1963
- 8½ | Federico FELLINI | 1963
- Ugetsu Monogatari | MIZOGUCHI Kenji | 1953
- L'Atalante | Jean VIGO | 1934
- Imitation of Life | Douglas SIRK | 1959
- Les Enfants du Paradis | Marcel CARNÉ | 1945
- The Battle of Algiers | Gillo PONTECORVO | 1966
- Aguirre, Wrath of God | Werner HERZOG | 1972
- Blade Runner | Ridley SCOTT | 1982
- Man with a Movie Camera | Dziga VERTOV | 1929
- La Dolce Vita | Federico FELLINI | 1960
- Andrei Rublev | Andrei TARKOVSKY | 1966
- L'Eclisse | Michelangelo ANTONIONI | 1962
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | POWELL & PRESSBURGER | 1943
- In the Mood for Love | WONG Kar-wai | 2000
- Au Hasard Balthazar | Robert BRESSON | 1966
- Pickpocket | Robert BRESSON | 1959
Unranked
- Beau Travail | Claire DENIS | 1999
- A Brighter Summer Day | Edward YANG | 1991
- Close-Up | Abbas KIAROSTAMI | 1990
- The Colour of Pomegranates | Sergei PARAJANOV | 1968
- Gertrud | Carl Th. DREYER | 1964
- Histoire(s) du Cinéma | Jean-Luc GODARD | 1998
- Jeanne Dielman | Chantal AKERMAN | 1975
- Journey to Italy | Roberto ROSSELLINI | 1954
- Late Spring | OZU Yasujirō | 1949
- Madame de… | Max OPHÜLS | 1953
- La Maman et la Putain | Jean EUSTACHE | 1973
- A Man Escaped | Robert BRESSON | 1956
- Mirror | Andrei TARKOVSKY | 1975
- A One and a Two | Edward YANG | 2000
- Ordet | Carl Th. DREYER | 1955
- Partie de Campagne | Jean RENOIR | 1936
- Pierrot le Fou | Jean-Luc GODARD | 1965
- Play Time | Jacques TATI | 1967
- Sans Soleil | Chris MARKER | 1983
- Sansho Dayu | MIZOGUCHI Kenji | 1954
- Sátántangó | TARR Béla | 1994
- Shoah | Claude LANZMANN | 1985
- The Spirit of the Beehive | Víctor ERICE | 1973
- Stalker | Andrei TARKOVSKY | 1979
- Touki-Bouki | Djibril DIOP MAMBÉTY | 1973
100
Additional Titles
Films
I think are as worthy of canonization as the S&S 100, listed
chronologically.
For
this list, I allowed all the critical and/or historical voices to once again
have their say in my head. Seven percent of the list is made of silent films,
which is only fair when almost a quarter of film history remains in that ever
more distant, underappreciated era. If I have a particular bias about which I
feel the least guilt, it’s that I champion genre films, which have often
illuminated the possibilities of narrative cinema more fully than the more
self-consciously artistic films that critics generally hold in the highest esteem.
A critic doesn’t have to do the work of filmmaking; he/she merely reports on
the final objet d’art as if the circumstances of production had
nothing, or should have nothing, to do with collaboration, financing, or
necessity. Put another way, I don’t dispute that there are auteurs, but I don’t
believe all auteurs are directors (some are producers, some are actors, and
some are multi-hyphenates), or that all directors are auteurs.
- Broken Blossoms | D.W. GRIFFITH | 1919
- The Cabinet of Dr Caligari | Robert WIENE | 1920
- The Last Laugh | F.W. MURNAU | 1924
- The Gold Rush | Charles CHAPLIN | 1925
- The Crowd | King VIDOR | 1928
- The Wind | Victor SJÖSTRÖM | 1928
- Pandora's Box | G.W. PABST | 1929
- I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang | Mervyn LEROY | 1932
- Trouble in Paradise | Ernst LUBITSCH | 1932
- Duck Soup | Leo MCCAREY | 1933
- King Kong | Merian C. COOPER & Ernest B. SCHOEDSACK | 1933
- Bride of Frankenstein | James WHALE | 1935
- Top Hat | Mark SANDRICH | 1935
- The Adventures of Robin Hood | Michael CURTIZ & William KEIGHLEY | 1938
- Bringing Up Baby | Howard HAWKS | 1938
- Gone with the Wind | Victor FLEMING | 1939
- Only Angels Have Wings | Howard HAWKS | 1939
- The Wizard of Oz | Victor FLEMING | 1939
- The Grapes of Wrath | John FORD | 1940
- The Lady Eve | Preston STURGES | 1941
- The Maltese Falcon | John HUSTON | 1941
- Double Indemnity | Billy WILDER | 1944
- Henry V | Laurence OLIVIER | 1944
- Brief Encounter | David LEAN | 1945
- La Belle et la Bête | Jean COCTEAU | 1946
- The Best Years of Our Lives | William WYLER | 1946
- It's a Wonderful Life | Frank CAPRA | 1946
- My Darling Clementine | John FORD | 1946
- Notorious | Alfred HITCHCOCK | 1946
- Black Narcissus | Michael POWELL & Emeric PRESSBURGER | 1947
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | John HUSTON | 1948
- In a Lonely Place | Nicholas RAY | 1950
- Los Olvidados | Luis BUÑUEL | 1950
- Winchester '73 | Anthony MANN | 1950
- Ace in the Hole | Billy WILDER | 1951
- The Day the Earth Stood Still | Robert WISE | 1951
- The Steel Helmet | Samuel FULLER | 1951
- Umberto D. | Vittorio DE SICA | 1952
- Duck! Rabbit, Duck! | Charles M. JONES | 1953
- Johnny Guitar | Nicholas RAY | 1954
- On the Waterfront | Elia KAZAN | 1954
- Les Diaboliques | Henri-Georges CLOUZOT | 1955
- Kiss Me Deadly | Robert ALDRICH | 1955
- Night and Fog | Alain RESNAIS | 1955
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers | Don SIEGEL | 1956
- The Bridge on the River Kwai | David LEAN | 1957
- The Incredible Shrinking Man | Jack ARNOLD | 1957
- Sweet Smell of Success | Alexander MACKENDRICK | 1957
- Hiroshima, Mon Amour | Alain RESNAIS | 1959
- The Apartment | Billy WILDER | 1960
- Viridiana | Luis BUÑUEL | 1961
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance | John FORD | 1962
- The Manchurian Candidate | John FRANKENHEIMER | 1962
- To Kill a Mockingbird | Robert MULLIGAN | 1962
- Dr. Strangelove | Stanley KUBRICK | 1964
- A Hard Day's Night | Richard LESTER | 1964
- Blow-Up | Michelangelo ANTONIONI | 1966
- Bonnie and Clyde | Arthur PENN | 1967
- The Graduate | Mike NICHOLS | 1967
- Point Blank | John BOORMAN | 1967
- Weekend | Jean-Luc GODARD | 1967
- Planet of the Apes | Franklin J. SCHAFFNER | 1968
- Salesman | Albert & David MAYSLES & Charlotte ZWERIN | 1968
- The Conformist | Bernardo BERTOLUCCI | 1970
- Five Easy Pieces | Bob RAFELSON | 1970
- A Clockwork Orange | Stanley KUBRICK | 1971
- The Last Picture Show | Peter BOGDANOVICH | 1971
- Cabaret | Bob FOSSE | 1972
- Deliverance | John BOORMAN | 1972
- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | Luis BUÑUEL | 1972
- Last Tango in Paris | Bernardo BERTOLUCCI | 1972
- Jaws | Steven SPIELBERG | 1975
- Network | Sidney LUMET | 1976
- Annie Hall | Woody ALLEN | 1977
- Star Wars | George LUCAS | 1977
- Days of Heaven | Terrence MALICK | 1978
- Alien | Ridley SCOTT | 1979
- Manhattan | Woody ALLEN | 1979
- Atlantic City | Louis MALLE | 1980
- Berlin Alexanderplatz | Rainer Werner FASSBINDER | 1980
- Koyaanisqatsi | Godfrey REGGIO | 1982
- The Verdict | Sidney LUMET | 1982
- Ran | KUROSAWA Akira | 1985
- Wings of Desire | Wim WENDERS | 1987
- Do the Right Thing | Spike LEE | 1989
- Glory | Edward ZWICK | 1989
- GoodFellas | Martin SCORSESE | 1990
- The Grifters | Stephen FREARS | 1990
- La Belle Noiseuse | Jacques RIVETTE | 1991
- The Silence of the Lambs | Jonathan DEMME | 1991
- Unforgiven | Clint EASTWOOD | 1992
- Three Colours: Blue | Krzysztof KIEŚLOWSKI | 1993
- Crumb | Terry ZWIGOFF | 1994
- Pulp Fiction | Quentin TARANTINO | 1994
- O Brother, Where Art Thou? | COEN Brothers | 2000
- Talk to Her | Pedro ALMODÓVAR | 2002
- Downfall | Oliver HIRSCHBIEGEL | 2004
- The Motorcycle Diaries | Walter SALLES | 2004
- There Will Be Blood | Paul Thomas ANDERSON | 2007
- The Social Network | David FINCHER | 2010
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