And finally - from the beginning of time! something like that. I will only have to cheat the pre 1920s, I think. I hope to update this every now and again - if I ever get really enthusiastic, I might start breaking down decades into years. (Steve Carlson has done so, back to 1953 - an inspiring project... it's certainly one of the things driving me to this process...) Anyway - into the breach! Just top 10 per decade for now, though that's a pretty narrow selection for some of these.)
2000s:
1. Inland Empire - USA - David Lynch
2. Yi Yi - Taiwan - Edward Yang
3. Kings and Queen - France - Arnaud Desplechins
4. 2046 - China - Wong Kar-wei
5. Death of Mr. Lazarescu - Romania - Christi Puiu
6. Mulholland Drive - USA - David Lynch
7. Colossal Youth - Portugal - Pedro Costa
8. L'Intrus - France - Claire Denis
9. Goodbye Dragon Inn - Taiwan - Tsai Ming-liang
10. Los Angeles Plays Itself - USA - Thom Anderson
1990s:
1. Rushmore - USA - Wes Anderson
2. Breaking the Waves - Denmark/UK - Lars Van Trier
3. Goodbye, South, Goodbye - Taiwan - Hou Hsiao Hsien
4. Satantango - Hungary - Bela Tarr
5. Fallen Angels - Hong Kong - Wong Kar-wei
6. Flowers of Shanghai - Taiwan - Hou Hsiao Hsien
7. Beijing Bastards - PRC - Zhang Yuan
8. Through the Olive Trees - Iran - Abbas Kiarostami
9. Happy Together - Hong Kong - Wong Kar-wei
10. White - France/Poland - Krysztof Kieslowski
1980s:
1. City of Sadness - Taiwan - Hou Hsiao Hsien
2. Blue Velvet - USA - David Lynch
3. Fitzcarraldo - Germany - Werner Herzog
4. The Elephant Man - USA - David Lynch
5. Do the Right Thing - USA - Spike Lee
6. Peking Opera Blues - Hong Kong - Tsui Hark
7. Brazil - UK/USA - Terry Gilliam
8. Blind Chance - Poland - Krysztof Kieslowski
9. Full Metal Jacket - USA - Stanley Kubrick
10. Raiders of the Lost Ark - USA - Steven Spielberg
[The Big Red One should be on here - except I think the restored version is probably more deserving than the original release. I certainly was more impressed - I don't know how much was the improvement in the film and how much was just seeing it in a theater vs. on video.]
1970s:
1.McCabe and Mrs Miller - USA - Robert Altman
2. Aguirre Wrath of God - Germany - Werner Herzog
3. A Woman Under the Influence - USA - John Cassavetes
4. Nashville - USA - Altman
5. Celine and Julie Go Boating - France - Jacques Rivette
6. Mystery of Kasper Hauser (Every Man for Himself and God Against All) - Germany - Werner Herzog
7. Killer of Sheep - USA - Charles Burnett [which is supposed to be getting a release sometime in 2007! it could make that list too.]
8. Killing of a Chinese Bookie - USA - John Cassavetes
9. The Long Goodbye - USA - Altman
10. Camera Buff - Poland - Krysztof Kieslowski
1960s: [An almost impossibly deep decade for this kind of list. I am, of course, a huge fan of French and Japanese new wave films - Godard and Imamura, particularly are among my very favorite filmmakers, and they were banging 'em out back in the day, at a sustained level of brilliance...]
1. Vivre Sa Vie - France - Jean Luc Godard
2. The Pornographers - Japan - Shohei Imamura
3. Gospel According to Matthew - Italy - Pier Paolo Pasolini
4. High and Low - Japan - Akira Kurosawa
5. Playtime - France - Jacques Tati
6. Pierrot Le Fou - France - JLG
7. The Sun's Burial - Japan - Nagisa Oshima
8. Insect Woman - Japan - Imamura
9. Alphaville - France - Godard again
10. Pigs and Battleships - Japan - Imamura again
1950s: [Same story here: a world wide renaissance in filmmaking after WWII, it seems.]
1. Early Summer - Japan - Yasujiro Ozu
2. Vertigo - USA - Alfred Hitchcock
3. Seven Samurai - Japan - Akira Kurosawa
4. Ugetsu Monogatari - JApan - Kenji Mizoguchi
5. Touch of Evil - USA - Orson Welles
6. Pather Panchali - India - Satyajit Ray
7. Tokyo Story - Japan - Ozu
8. Rear Window - USA - Hitchcock
9. The Searchers - USA - John Ford
10. Late Chrysanthemums - Japan Mikio Naruse
1940s:
1. It's a Wonderful Life - USA - Frank Capra
2. The Maltese Falcon - USA - John Huston
3. Late Spring - Japan - Yasujiro Ozu
4. His Girl Friday - USA - Howard Hawks
5. Ivan the Terrible - USSR - Sergei Eisenstein
6. The Big Sleep - USA - Howard Hawks
7. Fort Apache - USA - John Ford
8. Citizen Kane - USA - Orson Welles
9. Germany Year Zero - Italy - Roberto Rosselini
10. Stray Dog - Japan - Akira Kurosawa
1930s: [Another fairly miraculous decade for films - probably the best of the bunch, to be honest]
1. M - Germany - Fritz Lang
2. Rules of the Game - France - Jean Renoir
3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - USA - Frank Capra
4. Duck Soup - USA - Leo McCarey
5. I Was Born But... - Japan - Yasujiro Ozu
6. Bride of Frankenstein - USA - James Whale
7. Frankenstein - USA - James Whale
8. Osaka Elegy - Japan - Kenji Mizoguchi
9. Love Me Tonight - USA - Reuben Mamoulian
10. A Night at the Opera - USA - Sam Wood
1920s:
1. The General - USA - Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman
2. Nosferatu - Germany - FW Murnau
3.The Gold Rush - USA - Charles Chaplin
4. Our Hospitality - USA - Buster Keaton and John G Blystone
5. Man With the Movie Camera - USSR - Dziga Vertov
6. Earth - USSR - Aleksander Dovzhenko
7. Battleship Potemkin - USSR - Sergei Eisenstein
8. Sherlock Jr. - USA - Buster Keaton
9. October - USSR - Eisenstein
10. Greed - USA - Erich Von Stroheim
Pre-1920s: [this is definitely a mixed bag - shorts, features, what have you... probably biased toward features more than it should be.]
1. Birth of a Nation - USA - DW Griffith
2. Les Vampires - Louis Feuillade
3. Broken Blossoms - USA - Griffith
4. The Tramp - USA - Charlie Chaplin
5. Intolerance - USA - Griffith
6. Regeneration - USA - Raoul Walsh
7. True Heart Susie - USA - Griffith
8. South - UK - Frank Jurley [this is the footage shot on the Shackleton expedition]
9. Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Germany - Robert Weine
10. The Champion - USA - Chaplin
And that is that.
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5 comments:
Bold move, sir. Looking forward to seeing those yearly lists. Another impressive attempt at this sort of thing is at Michael Anderson's Tativille: http://tativille.blogspot.com/
Hmm.... there's not even a single film by Robert Bresson.
Hmm.... there's not even a single film by Robert Bresson.
There isn't... that's surprising, I guess, though his best films were in the 60s, and the competition was stiff. I suppose I could have forced myself to leave off a Godard or Imamura film, though not without some pain. But either way, the 11-20 list isn't much of a drop off, and Mouchette and Pickpocket would be there. Maybe the Trial of Joan of Arc if I were feeling perverse.
I feel like you have director's second best works on the top of your lists. Most people would agree, for example, that Rushmore is inferior to Royal Tannenbaums. I felt that RT developed and refined the style they were trying to do in Rushmore. Then again Royal Tannenbaums is 2001.
I don't know what your argument would be for McCabe and Mrs Miller superceding MASH. I find MASH to be more outwardly ironic and its humor adds another layer. McCabe and Mrs Miller, I also found the folk music to be annoying. Someday, I will look foward to reading your review of McCabe and Mrs Miller if you've written one.
Okonheim: if you're looking for a defense of McCabe - there you go. At some length... I do think it's the best at this aspect of Altman's work - coming at a story from inside the characters and outside, from the community's perspective. It's got the best balance - the inner worlds of the characters get the most attention here - it works equally well at several levels. It's on the short list of the world's great films.
And how can you not like Leonard Cohen?
As for Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums - not much better than Rushmore, either. I don't think I've posted a defense anywhere. RT doesn't quite come up to the level of Rushmore. The style is too mannered - the story and themes less clean and effective... It's still great, but Rushmore is closing in on perfect.
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