Beyond the Canon Poll and Results

Iain Stott has been running a poll this year - it started with a 50 Greatest Ever poll - which yielded the standard list, and seems to have caused some soul searching. So he organized another poll - this time to try to find films that don't all make the usual lists... So he solicited more lists, but this time, prohibiting some of the usual suspects - a list of 300 established classics.

The results are in. It's an interesting idea, though the top films in this poll aren't as overlooked as they might be. The list, starting with Kubrick, Lynch, Hitchcock and Wong - is still pretty standard - though the high placing Gondry film is a neat touch... Iain addressed the problem with another list - a Further Beyond the Canon list - which weights films votes by their number of IMDB votes... But it's true, when you start playing with lists, you soon notice that 300 films is almost nothing. Even lists like the 1000 greatest at They Shoot Pictures Don't They? don't really exhaust the great films - though it might give you a better place to start.... I find myself trapped by the auteur problem - Iain's 300 films only included 2 Ozu films - what do I do with that? Me, I'd have 9 or 10 in the top 300 - does this mean Ozu is overlooked? I have no idea what to do about that. It's hard to think of Ozu (or Hawks, or name your example) as overlooked - on the other hand - you can't really afford to overlook them yourself in a poll like this can you?

But this is not about angst, for this is not an angsty project - it's a freaking delight, really. Playing with lists and numbers and all those films - there's real pleasure to be taken in just looking through a list of film titles you love - there is for me, anyway. So I'm not going to complain, and indeed, had to resist the urge to make about 6 lists.... In the end, I did, in fact, make 2 lists. One is my official ballot - that is by year, which seemed a way to balance the need to get those missing Ozu films on record with the desire to get some real variety on the list. Going year by year brings in some arbitrariness, which has to help.... But I also finished a straight list - the best films, in order, not included in the official, poll canon. And that - might as well post here. You'll note 1963 put 2 films in the top 5 - creating an odd auteur problem - there's plenty of Kurosawa on the official canon, no Imamura - I went out of my way to correct that, sticking 3 of em on the official ballot and 6 (I think) on here.... but if you can't use polls to champion your own favorites, well...

Anyway - there's plenty more to chew on at the Beyond the Canon site - I still haven't really looked through the lists all that closely... I look forward to it. And now - this is my straight list, if I'd just put out the 100 best films not on the canon, in order...

Early Summer - 1951 - Ozu Yasujiro
The Pornographers - 1966 - Imamura, Shohei
City of Sadness - 1989 - Hou HsiaoHsien
High and Low - 1963 - Kurosawa, Akira
The Insect Woman - 1963 - Imamura Shohei
Inland Empire - 2006 - Lynch, David
Rushmore - 1998 - Anderson, Wes
A Woman Under the Influence - 1974 - Cassavetes., John
Mystery of Kaspar Hauser - 1975 - Herzog, Warner
A Brighter Summer Day - 1991 - Yang, Edward
I Was Born But... - 1932 - Ozu Yasujiro
Intentions of Murder - 1963 - Imamura Shohei
Late Chrysanthemums - 1954 - Naruse Mikio
Ceremony - 1971 - Oshima Nagisa
Pigs and Battleships - 1961 - Imamura, Shohei
Yi Yi - 2000 - Yang, Edward
Fort Apache - 1948 - Ford, John
Killer of Sheep - 1977 - Burnett, Charles
Killing of a Chinese Bookie - 1976 - Cassavetes, John
Frankenstein - 1931 - Whale, James
Love Me Tonight - 1932 - Mamoulian, Rouben
The Long Goodbye - 1973 - Altman, Robert
Osaka Elegy - 1936 - Mizoguchi, Kenji
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs - 1960 - Naruse Mikio
The Sun's Burial - 1960 - Oshima Nagisa
A Night at the Opera - 1935 - Wood, Sam
Alphaville - 1965 - Godard, Jean - Luc
Camera Buff - 1979 - Kieslowski, Krystof
Fitzcarraldo - 1982 - Herzog, werner
Fires on the Plain - 1959 - Ichikawa Kon
Fallen Angels - 1995 - Wong Kar wei
Vanda's Room - 2000 - Costa, Pedro
Mabuse the Gambler - 1922 - Lang, Fritz
Colossal Youth - 2006 - Costa, Pedro
Breaking the Waves - 1996 - von Trier, Lars
Kings and Queen - 2004 - Desplechin, Arnaud
Wife! Be like a rose! - 1935 - Naruse Mikio
Crimes of M Lange - 1935 - Renoir, Jean
Goodbye South, Goodbye - 1996 - Hou Hsiao Hsien
Make Way for Tomorrow - 1937 - McCarey, Leo
Stray Dog - 1949 - Kurosawa Akira
A Touch of Zen - 1969 - King Hu
A Man Vanishes - 1967 - Imamura, Shohei
Hard Days Night - 1965 - Lester, Richard
Saint Jack - 1979 - Bogdanovich, Peter
Written on the Wind - 1956 - Sirk, Douglas
Peking Opera Blues - 1986 - Tsui Hark
Life of Brian - 1979 - Jones, Terry
Our Hospitality - 1923 - Keaton, Buster
Platinum Blonde - 1931 - Capra, Frank
Broken Blossoms - 1919 - Griffith, DW
Cleo from 5 to 7 - 1961 - Varda, Agnes
Eraserhead - 1977 - Lynch, David
Happy Together - 1997 - Wong Kar Wei
Boy - 1969 - Oshima Nagisa
An Inn in Tokyo - 1935 - Ozu Yasujiro
Passing Fancy - 1933 - Ozu Yasujiro
L'Amour Fou - 1969 - Rivette, Jacques
Some Came Running - 1958 - Minnelli, Vincente
Testament of Dr. Mabuse - 1933 - Lang, Fritz
Once Upon a Time in China - 1991 - Tsui Hark
Mother - 1952 - Naruse, Michio
The Only Son - 1936 - Ozu Yasujiro
Death of Mr. Lazarescu - 2005 - Puiu, Christi
2046 - 2004 - Wong Kar wei
Sisters of the Gion - 1936 - Mizoguchi Kenji
The Asphalt Jungle - 1950 - Huston, John
Vengeance is Mine - 1979 - Imamura, Shohei
Beijing Bastards - 1993 - Zhang Yuan
Through the Olive Trees - 1994 - Kiarostami, Abbas
Thirty Two Short Films About Glen Gould - 1993 - Girard, Francois
Trash - 1970 - Morrissey, Paul
Chelsea Girls - 1966 - Warhol, Andy
Dead of the Night - 1945 - Multiple
Two or Three Things I know About Her - 1966 - Godard, Jean - Luc
Flowers of Shanghai - 1998 - Hou Hsiao Hsien
Jour de Fete - 1949 - Tati, Jacques
October - 1927 - Eisenstein, Sergei
The Marriage of Maria Braun - 1979 - Fassbinder, Rainer Werner
Blind Chance - 1981 - Kieslowski, Krystof
Doomed Love - 1979 - Oliveira, Manoel de
The Big Red One - 1982 - Fuller, Sam
Death By Hanging - 1968 - Oshima Nagisa
O Brother Where Art Thou - 2000 - Coen, Joel
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On - 1987 - Hara Kazuo
Home From The Hill - 1960 - Minnelli, Vincente
One Fine Day - 1968 - Olmi, Ermanno
Terroriser - 1986 - Yang, Edward
L'Intrus - 2004 - Denis, Claire
Blessed Event - 1932 - Del Ruth, Roy
Shoot the Piano Player - 1960 - Truffaut, Francois
Charlie Verrick - 1973 - Siegel, Don
All Quiet on the Western Front - 1930 - Milestone, Lewis
The River - 1997 - Tsai Ming-liang
You're Telling Me - 1934 - Kenton, Erle C
The Sweet Hereafter- 1997 - Egoyan, Atom
Badlands - 1973 - Malick, Terrence
A Moment of Innocence - 1995 - Makhmalbaf, Mohsen
Swordsman II - 1991 - Ching siu tung
Grin Without a Cat - 1977- Marker, Chris