My Film Journey
by Potso82 | created - 03 Jul 2012 | updated - 04 Jul 2012 | PublicI'm going to try and limit to one per director, but that probably won't work as planned. It's not really in any particular order, and I've written more about some films than others. I have pretty eclectic tastes, it's a working progress and there's obviously so much I haven't seen, so I'm open to recommendations and criticisms in the comments!
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1. 8½ (1963)
Not Rated | 138 min | Drama
A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.
Director: Federico Fellini | Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Claudia Cardinale, Sandra Milo
Votes: 125,160 | Gross: $0.05M
This film recently hit me in the most profound way a film ever has, so I HAVE to place this at the top.
2. The Apartment (1960)
Approved | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston
Votes: 196,734 | Gross: $18.60M
Jack Lemmon is one of my favourite actors and this is my favourite of his many great performances. I feel like C.C. way more often than I'd like to admit.
3. L'Atalante (1934)
Not Rated | 89 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Newly married couple Juliette and a ship captain Jean struggle through marriage as they travel on the L'atalante along with the captain's first mate Le père Jules and a cabin boy.
Director: Jean Vigo | Stars: Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, Gilles Margaritis, Louis Lefebvre
Votes: 17,465
Vigo was an extraordinary talent and this, unfortunately, was his culminating piece. Its manic and rough energy evokes everything of passion - confusion, joy, anger, longing... this film is the energy of love.
4. Harakiri (1962)
Not Rated | 133 min | Action, Drama, Mystery
When a ronin requesting seppuku at a feudal lord's palace is told of the brutal suicide of another ronin who previously visited, he reveals how their pasts are intertwined - and in doing so challenges the clan's integrity.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita, Tetsurô Tanba
Votes: 68,600
One man's monumental stand against a sprawling, corrupt system makes for one of the finest dramas ever made. Kobayashi's direction is pitch-perfect and rarely becomes obtrusive.
5. City Lights (1931)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers
Votes: 196,008 | Gross: $0.02M
Maybe the greatest closing in cinema history? If not the greatest, then absolutely the most adorable. Or heart-breaking, depending how you look at it.
6. Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Passed | 112 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
An old roué arrives in Hades to review his life with Satan, who will rule on his eligibility to enter the Underworld.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main
Votes: 12,356
Can we all cut it out with 'Gone with the Wind' and 'Casablanca' idolatry for a second and focus on this film as one of American cinema's greatest love stories? The insatiably sexy Gene Tierney is magnificent in Technicolor. And if the devil were that cool of a dude, hell really wouldn't be that bad, I guess! A very 'American' picture (cynicism and all), but very honest and heart-rending in a way only Lubitsch can provide.
7. Brazil (1985)
R | 132 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A bureaucrat in a dystopic society becomes an enemy of the state as he pursues the woman of his dreams.
Director: Terry Gilliam | Stars: Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond
Votes: 211,184 | Gross: $9.93M
I saw this when I was a teenager and it rocked my pseudo-political, armchair revolutionary brain. Unfortunately, it seems 1984 and this film have been used more as instruction booklets rather than cautionary tales.
8. Viridiana (1961)
Not Rated | 91 min | Drama
Viridiana, a young nun about to take her final vows, pays a visit to her widowed uncle at the request of her Mother Superior.
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Silvia Pinal, Francisco Rabal, Fernando Rey, José Calvo
Votes: 26,123
9. The Young and the Damned (1950)
Not Rated | 80 min | Crime, Drama
A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent and crime-filled life in the festering slums of Mexico City, as the morals of young Pedro are gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Alfonso Mejía, Roberto Cobo, Estela Inda, Miguel Inclán
Votes: 21,995
Not even going to bother choosing between the two of these. I could have filled most of my list with Bunuel titles. Two indispensable works from one of cinema's cheekiest bastards.
10. Barry Lyndon (1975)
PG | 185 min | Adventure, Drama, War
An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Krüger
Votes: 183,007
I really do think this is Kubrick's best accomplishment. Call me facetious or pretentious for it, I couldn't care less. I discover a new layer of meaning just about every time I watch it. It's got everything that makes a great Kubrick film a great Kubrick film, and it's unfairly misunderstood. Doesn't help when just about every home video release has absolutely skewered the film. Criterion blu-ray, please!
11. The Third Man (1949)
Approved | 93 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard
Votes: 181,798 | Gross: $0.45M
Atmospheric post-war Vienna, the fascinating and funny characters, the zither score, the rigid angles and shadows, the ferris wheel scene, what's not to love? The energy between Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli is especially superb.
12. Band of Outsiders (1964)
Not Rated | 95 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Two crooks with a fondness for old Hollywood B-movies convince a languages student to help them commit a robbery.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Anna Karina, Claude Brasseur, Danièle Girard, Louisa Colpeyn
Votes: 27,055 | Gross: $0.04M
A really monumental piece of work underneath its pulp-novel charm and hipper than hell self-consciousness. There's so much going on here, and Godard's detached narration evokes its existential nature pitch-perfectly.
13. Army of Shadows (1969)
Not Rated | 145 min | Drama, War
An account of underground resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied France.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret
Votes: 25,840 | Gross: $0.74M
Maybe not my favourite Melville (that honour would go to Le Cercle Rouge), but this is his most important and moving work, to me. The gloom and doom of WWII through the eyes of the men and women who would go to any length to help their countrymen - even if it means ending their lives.
14. The Searchers (1956)
Passed | 119 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
An American Civil War veteran embarks on a years-long journey to rescue his niece from the Comanches after the rest of his brother's family is massacred in a raid on their Texas farm.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond
Votes: 96,244
Johns Ford and Wayne, please report to the front desk of awesome. Textbook example of a great action/adventure film.
15. M (1931)
Passed | 99 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke
Votes: 168,406 | Gross: $0.03M
An incredible psychological crime thriller and whopping slam on a bloated, counter-productive legal system.
16. My Uncle (1958)
Not Rated | 116 min | Comedy
Monsieur Hulot visits the technology-driven world of his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, but he can't quite fit into the surroundings.
Director: Jacques Tati | Stars: Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Lucien Frégis
Votes: 24,243
See below...
17. Playtime (1967)
Not Rated | 155 min | Comedy
Monsieur Hulot curiously wanders around a high-tech Paris, paralleling a trip with a group of American tourists. Meanwhile, a nightclub/restaurant prepares its opening night, but it's still under construction.
Director: Jacques Tati | Stars: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Rita Maiden, France Rumilly
Votes: 25,925
Another two that I can't choose between. The same story told in a different way, I suppose. In 'Mon Oncle', the old world is still there (maybe in collective memory only), but the old world is obliterated in 'Playtime'. Glassy and glossy everything, automated and readymade everything, ridiculous looking clothing and furniture, maybe Tati wasn't far off from where we are now? I wish he were with us today, if only to hilariously satirize cell phones and social media.
18. Stalker (1979)
Not Rated | 162 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Nikolay Grinko
Votes: 144,694 | Gross: $0.23M
I don't have a clue what it means yet, but the cryptically brilliant storytelling of Tarkovsky won't let us rest just "knowing what the film's about". He wanted us to embrace the metaphysical and the spiritual to fully understand ourselves, in and outside of the cinema space. Maybe we can someday, who knows?
19. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
PG-13 | 166 min | Western
A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards
Votes: 349,012 | Gross: $5.32M
Sergio Leone's larger-than-life Western hits something that transcends the genre, the material and maybe even cinema itself. The way he evokes primal response through the movement of the film, the environment and the subjects in the frame is nothing short of genius.
20. Rome, Open City (1945)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Thriller, War
During the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944, the Resistance leader, Giorgio Manfredi, is chased by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a way to escape.
Director: Roberto Rossellini | Stars: Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, Marcello Pagliero, Vito Annichiarico
Votes: 28,960
I've yet to seen the other two parts to Rosellini's war trilogy, but I really enjoyed this one. Sombre and real as it gets, and you can see where films like 'The Pianist' got its look from.
21. High and Low (1963)
Not Rated | 143 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
An executive of a Yokohama shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped by mistake and held for ransom.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Yutaka Sada, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyôko Kagawa
Votes: 53,159
Maybe my favourite crime thriller ever. How Toshiro Mifune act so ferociously and never seem to chew the scenery? The whole train sequence is one of my favourite moments in any Kurosawa film.
22. Seven Samurai (1954)
Not Rated | 207 min | Action, Drama
Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, who gathers six other samurai to join him.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima, Yukiko Shimazaki
Votes: 366,693 | Gross: $0.27M
To some extent, I prefer Kurosawa's contemporary period works (High and Low, Stray Dog, Ikiru) to his samurai dramas, but this is obviously an indispensable masterpiece from the great filmmaker. Talk about versatility!
23. Crumb (1994)
R | 119 min | Documentary, Biography, Comedy
An intimate portrait of controversial cartoonist Robert Crumb and his traumatized family.
Director: Terry Zwigoff | Stars: Robert Crumb, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Charles Crumb, Maxon Crumb
Votes: 21,589 | Gross: $3.17M
Great date movie! Or family movie night! Fun for all ages!
24. The Rules of the Game (1939)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
A bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II, as the rich and their poor servants meet up at a French chateau.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély
Votes: 31,311
See below...
25. A Day in the Country (1946)
Not Rated | 40 min | Short, Comedy, Drama
The family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Sylvia Bataille, Jane Marken, Georges D'Arnoux, André Gabriello
Votes: 7,096
My favourite of Renoir's films, and he could very well be my favourite director. He was one of cinema's most honest craftsmen - one who could parody and satirize while acknowledging our humanity at its most basic. Rules of the Game has so much violent repression under its bourgeoise mannerism that it feels like it's going to burst at the seems (and eventually does). That sentiment is perfectly expanded into a global scale as World War II rearing its ugly head, and nobody in the film could be bothered for a moment. I love a drama that makes me feel that way. As for Partie de campagne, I discovered it on Youtube and I immediately fell in love with its simplicity, French country charm and pictorial romanticism.
26. The Thin Red Line (1998)
R | 170 min | Drama, History, War
Adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.
Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Kirk Acevedo
Votes: 199,557 | Gross: $36.40M
Makes "Saving Private Ryan", although a wonderful film in its own right, seem like a jingoistic cartoon. It's huge in scope and spectacle, but earthy, human and metaphysical in the way few war films are.
27. Mulholland Drive (2001)
R | 147 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
After a car wreck on Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesiac, she and a Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Jeanne Bates
Votes: 383,696 | Gross: $7.22M
I love just about everything I've seen from Lynch, but this mind bender is my favourite. Another film that can mean something completely different from a previous viewing.
28. Nosferatu (1922)
Not Rated | 94 min | Fantasy, Horror
Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder
Votes: 105,394
Saw this at a young age, and was blown away. I didn't understand a lot of it then, but no doubt the images and ideas still remain. Murnau was fantastic.
29. House (1977)
Not Rated | 88 min | Comedy, Horror
A schoolgirl and six of her classmates travel to her aunt's country home, which turns out to be haunted.
Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi | Stars: Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ôba, Ai Matsubara
Votes: 33,709
Because it's great. The hell if I know why, but it is. Going to become a staple of every Halloween for me, from now on!
30. Touch of Evil (1958)
PG-13 | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping and police corruption in a Mexican border town.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia
Votes: 109,788 | Gross: $2.24M
Orson Welles' larger than life style was never more appropriate for this tale of sleaze and intrigue. Dat opening shot...
31. Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
PG | 125 min | Drama, Romance
China in the 1920s. After her father's death, Songlian is forced to marry the wealthy Master Chen. With three wives already, each living in a separate house, there is fierce competition for his attention and the privileges that are gained.
Director: Yimou Zhang | Stars: Gong Li, Jingwu Ma, Saifei He, Cuifen Cao
Votes: 35,330 | Gross: $2.60M
Yimou Zhang is a director I want to see more of, as I've seen only this and 'Hero', which was also spectacular. What a great drama, and hell of a statement about pre-Revolution China, a country in limbo.
32. Big Night (1996)
R | 109 min | Drama, Romance
New Jersey, 1950s. Two brothers run an Italian restaurant. Business is not going well as a rival Italian restaurant is out-competing them. In a final effort to save the restaurant, the brothers plan to put on an evening of incredible food.
Directors: Campbell Scott, Stanley Tucci | Stars: Tony Shalhoub, Stanley Tucci, Marc Anthony, Larry Block
Votes: 22,819 | Gross: $11.88M
*VERY MINOR SPOILER BELOW. NOT MOVIE-RUINING, BUT YOU'VE BEEN WARNED...*
One of my dad's favourite films, and i can see why. I'm a bit of a foodie, so this film hit me right in the gut, literally! The brother dynamic is rarely as honestly portrayed as it is in this film, with Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub playing Primo and Secondo with just enough empathy and just enough confidence. The fight scene between them on the beach is one of the funniest moments in any movie, ever.
33. Office Space (1999)
R | 89 min | Comedy
Three company workers who hate their jobs decide to rebel against their greedy boss.
Director: Mike Judge | Stars: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman, Ajay Naidu
Votes: 287,478 | Gross: $10.82M
One of the funniest films ever made. I totally identify with Mike Judge's sense of humour. His timing and subtlety are pitch-perfect, and this film is a great showcase of this. Damn it feels good to be a gangsta!
34. The Man Without a Past (2002)
PG-13 | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
M arrives in Helsinki only to be viciously attacked by thugs and pronounced dead by medics. He revives but with no memory of his past or his identity. He rebuilds his life from scratch, but the past inevitably catches up with him.
Director: Aki Kaurismäki | Stars: Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Annikki Tähti, Juhani Niemelä
Votes: 26,076 | Gross: $0.92M
Saw this on a sleepless weeknight on the CBC late night movie block and I haven't seen it since... but WOW! I never heard of Kaurismaki when I was 16, and never even thought Finland had a film industry, so this film rocked my juvenile brain to high heaven. I've seen other Kaurismaki since (The Match Factory Girl, La vie de boheme), but nothing has quite touched me on the level this film did. Can't wait for Le Havre!
35. Rushmore (1998)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A teenager at Rushmore Academy falls for a much older teacher and befriends a middle-aged industrialist. Later, he finds out that his love interest and his friend are having an affair, which prompts him to begin a vendetta.
Director: Wes Anderson | Stars: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Seymour Cassel
Votes: 197,935 | Gross: $17.11M
Out of a whole career of wonderful films, this is Anderson's finest hour and a half. It lacks the polish of his subsequent works, and that's exactly why I adore it. It's a film for young people by a young person, and it's totally in love with cinema.
36. Stop Making Sense (1984)
PG | 88 min | Documentary, Music
Considered by critics as the greatest concert film of all time, the live performance was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December of 1983 and features Talking Heads' most memorable songs.
Director: Jonathan Demme | Stars: David Byrne, Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir, Steven Scales
Votes: 19,984 | Gross: $5.02M
It was really hard to leave 'Something Wild' or 'Melvin and Howard' off this list, because Jonathan Demme is one of my favourite directors, but Talking Heads is one of the most important bands in my life so I figured it had to make the cut. Christ, I can't rave enough about this film. It transcends 'concert' film into a far larger idea. It has narrative focus, dramatic storytelling, and, most importantly, an impeccable performance from the whole band. I DARE you to keep your foot still while watching this!
37. Alien (1979)
R | 117 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating a mysterious transmission of unknown origin.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright
Votes: 950,074 | Gross: $78.90M
What film list is complete without this one? Dan O'Bannon's screenplay is the real highlight of this film, to me, as its delicate pacing takes on poetic sensibility. A sense of quivering solitude in a spaceship going nowhere but insane. Throw in Ridley Scott's famously exact directing style, dark, rape-oriented psychology, and some seriously wicked acting from Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt and Ian Holm, and voila! Masterpiece.
38. Three Colors: Blue (1993)
R | 94 min | Drama, Music, Mystery
A woman struggles to find a way to live her life after the death of her husband and child.
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski | Stars: Juliette Binoche, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy, Benoît Régent
Votes: 110,465 | Gross: $1.32M
The rest of the trilogy included, obviously, but this is my favourite link of the three. God, Juliette Binoche is so radiant it's actually physically difficult to bear. With a gaze that could stop a train, she and Kieslowski want you to feel as miserable and empty as her character is. Worked on me! These films are so soaked with meaning and beauty that I'm sure their stature will only increase over the years.
39. Videodrome (1983)
R | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A programmer at a Toronto TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: James Woods, Debbie Harry, Sonja Smits, Peter Dvorsky
Votes: 102,937 | Gross: $2.12M
It was either this or 'Dead Ringers', but I've seen Videodrome a few more times and I think I understand it a bit better, so I'll write about it. I read a lot of Marshall McLuhan in high school, so when I saw this, naturally I loved it. David Cronenberg is a master of the perverse, and this is one of his finest mind/body corruption titles.
40. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
Not Rated | 98 min | Drama, Fantasy
In 1940, after watching and being traumatized by the movie Frankenstein (1931), a sensitive seven year-old girl living in a small Spanish village drifts into her own fantasy world.
Director: Víctor Erice | Stars: Fernando Fernán Gómez, Teresa Gimpera, Ana Torrent, Isabel Tellería
Votes: 20,662
I've only seen this once, and it went a little over my head, but I'm excited to watch and watch again because I know there's something incredibly profound waiting for me to discover. Am I just vapid, or is there something very difficult to approach about this piece?
41. Blazing Saddles (1974)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Western
In order to ruin a western town, a corrupt politician appoints a black Sheriff, who promptly becomes his most formidable adversary.
Director: Mel Brooks | Stars: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman
Votes: 152,429 | Gross: $119.50M
42. Do the Right Thing (1989)
R | 120 min | Comedy, Drama
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson
Votes: 112,382 | Gross: $27.55M
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