I hated L’Avventura.
Sight & Sound released their once-a-decade Top 10 Movies of All Time poll recently, and it inspired me to sit down and come up with a Top 10 of my own. I ended up having 148 nominees for those 10 slots, so I figured I would talk about them some on my bloggity-blog. I hope to get to them all over time, and I’m sure I’ll add more as I go. Hopefully, I’ll inspire you to seek out some flicks you should have already seen, and who knows? Maybe we can discuss that here.
Here’s my list, which will be updated with links as I post new blogs. Please note that I came up with this list in about 30 minutes, so I reserve to add and remove films at my leisure:
- 8 1/2
- 2001
- A.I.
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
- Adventures of Robin Hood
- After Hours
- The Age of Innocence
- Aguirre, The Wrath of God
- Airplane
- Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
- Alien
- All About Eve
- All The President’s Men
- Anchorman
- Annie Hall
- Apocalypse Now
- The Aviator
- Barry Lyndon
- Barton Fink
- The Best Years Of Our Lives
- Bicycle Thieves
- Big Lebowski
- Black Swan
- Blade Runner
- Blazing Saddles
- Blow Out
- Blue Velvet
- Boogie Nights
- Bridge Over The River Kwai
- Bug
- Burn After Reading
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
- Cache
- Carrie
- Casablanca
- Casino
- Children of Men
- Chinatown
- Citizen Kane
- City Lights
- The Conversation
- Cool Hand Luke
- Crimes and Misdemeanors
- Dawn of the Dead (original)
- The Departed
- Die Hard
- Dr. Strangelove
- Duck Soup
- E.T.
- Ed Wood
- Exorcist
- Fargo
- Fight Club
- Finding Nemo
- For All Mankind
- The General
- Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
- Godfather Part 1/2
- The Gold Rush
- Goodfellas
- Gosford Park
- Halloween
- Hausu
- Heat
- Hoop Dreams
- I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang
- Inception
- The Incredibles
- Inglourious Basterds
- Jackie Brown
- Jaws
- Kill Bill 1/2
- The Killing
- The King of Comedy
- The Last Emperor
- The Last Picture Show
- The Last Waltz
- Lawrence of Arabia
- Let The Right One In
- The Lion King
- The Long Goodbye
- Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
- M
- Magnolia
- Manhattan
- Martha Marcy May Marlene
- MASH
- Master & Commander
- McCabe & Mrs. Miller
- Melancholia
- Metropolis
- Midnight Run
- Miller’s Crossing
- Mulholland Dr
- Mystery Train
- Nashville
- No Country For Old Men
- Paper Moon
- Paris, Texas
- The Passion of Joan of Arc
- Paths of Glory
- Persona
- Planes, Trains and Automobiles
- Pulp Fiction
- Raging Bull
- Ran
- Rashomon
- Rear Window
- The Red Shoes
- The Royal Tenenbaums
- Schindler’s List
- School of Rock
- A Serious Man
- Seven Samurai
- The Seventh Seal
- Sherlock Jr
- The Shining
- Shock Corridor
- Shoot The Piano Player
- Short Cuts
- Sideways
- Singing in the Rain
- Speed Racer
- The Sting
- Stranger Than Paradise
- Strozek
- Sunshine
- Targets
- Taxi Driver
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- There Will be Blood
- The Thing
- Three Colors: Blue
- Three Colors: White
- Three Colors: Red
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- Touch of Evil
- Toy Story 1/2/3
- Traffic
- Up
- Vampyr
- The Verdict
- Vertigo
- Wall-E
- A Woman Under The Influence
- The Wrestler
- Young Frankenstein
- Zodiac
Some brief notes about my choices:
1. I tried to think of films throughout movie history, and not just, say, the best films since 1980. I know several people who roll their eyes and get bored by older films. To those people I say, “You’re terrible, your lack of curiosity is terrible, and your opinions are terrible, too.” So nyah.
2. This is definitely an incomplete list. I’m guessing the bulk of films I choose will be ones that most people have heard of. There may be a few surprises, but even those you’ve probably heard of.
3. The list will be alphabetical. So, for example if I post about “Vertigo” and I have #143 beside it, it just means it’s #143 alphabetically, so don’t get all testy.
4. I have lots of blind spots in my cinema-watching experience, and there are several filmmakers left out that a more advanced cinephile would consider sacrilege: Ozu (haven’t seen), Antonioni (I struggled through L’Avventura during my first semester of film school. It was brutal, in part because I was a young, impatient goober. I also don’t really like Blow-Up that much), Satyajit Ray (haven’t seen) and Tarkovsky (haven’t seen). I have Bergman on my list with Persona and The Seventh Seal, but would you believe those are the only Bergman films I’ve seen? I’m lame.
5. I’ve seen several Godard films. The guy’s a genius, and I respect his advancement of the form. I also don’t want to see any of his movies twice. If there’s one thing all of the films on my list have in common, it’s that I’m eager to see them twice. Yes, even Schindler’s List.
6. Only about 15 percent of my list consists of foreign films. Hopefully that number will grow as my list grows.
So there you have it. Look for my reviews to start appearing Monday. How fun!
Jesse Is Terrific 