Top 10 list
by temrok9 | created - 17 Oct 2016 | updated - 10 Jan 2023 | PublicWith every chance, I refresh my all time favourites list, with the limitation of 10 here, but there are plenty more to mention, among which I definitely have to mention Brian De Palma's Body Double, Blow out, Carrie, Obssession and the Fury, Stanley Kubrick's 2001:A space odyssey, George Romero's Martin, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, David Lynch's Blue Velvet, George Miller's Mad Max:Road warrior, Robert Bresson's Au hasard Balthasar, Carl Drayer's Ordet, Wim Wenders' An American friend and In the passage of time, Antonioni's Blow up and L' Eclisse, Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,Polanski's The ghost writer, John Carpenter's In the mouth of madness and Escape from New York, Copolla's Godfather 2, and Dario Argento's Inferno.
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1. Halloween (1978)
R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes
Votes: 306,937 | Gross: $47.00M
Rewatching Halloween for one more time, I cannot but realise that the film's economy, impact and rare beauty are almost unmatchable. Carpenter takes a simple story, and shows how less can be more: excellent orchestration of time and space, an omnipresent gaze, and a horror that haunts our lives for ever more, inherent in the knowledge of being as being towards death. Not just a horror film but a study in the nature of horror, understanding cinema as a net to trap and release the unnameable.
2. The Fog (1980)
R | 89 min | Horror, Thriller
An unearthly fog rolls into a small coastal town exactly 100 years after a ship mysteriously sank in its waters.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, John Houseman
Votes: 83,051 | Gross: $21.38M
As a counterpart to Halloween, this underrated-even by Carpenter himself- movie is an excellent piece of poetic horror. Carpenter organizes a certain state of events around the voice of the woman in the lighthouse, giving the myth concept a new dimension, at the same time revealing its origins and intensifying its impact. A dreamy film, a masterpiece.
3. Cul-de-sac (1966)
Not Rated | 112 min | Comedy, Drama, Thriller
In search of help, two wounded gangsters on the run find refuge in the secluded castle of a feeble man and his wife; however, under the point of a gun, nothing is what it seems.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Françoise Dorléac, Lionel Stander, Jack MacGowran
Votes: 13,973
The genius of Roman Polanski shines in the way he reconstructs a Becketian concept through the conventions of many genres(gangster film, comedy), only to transform them in a unique synthesis, unforgettable and unmatchable, dedicated to the lightnesss of being. A perfect cinematic enigma!
4. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Approved | 137 min | Drama, Horror
A young couple trying for a baby moves into an aging, ornate apartment building on Central Park West, where they find themselves surrounded by peculiar neighbors.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer
Votes: 235,334
Perhaps Polanski's most perfect direction. The descent into a changing perception of the world is given in an extraordinary way, that is built almost magically, leading through to the cul-de-sac of the end.
5. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)
R | 123 min | Drama, War
During WWII, a British colonel tries to bridge the cultural divides between a British POW and the Japanese camp commander in order to avoid bloodshed.
Director: Nagisa Ôshima | Stars: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano
Votes: 20,035 | Gross: $2.31M
Oshima's underrated masterpiece centers on the relations between 'others' under the sun of the Other, and the exchange that takes place when everyhting is at stake.A movie that demands a lot of pages for a decent analysis, and one that has generated the most profound feelings while watching it(there is no movie during which I cried more).
6. Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
R | 91 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A Highway Patrol Officer, two criminals and a station secretary defend a defunct Los Angeles precinct office against a siege by a bloodthirsty street gang.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, Martin West
Votes: 55,652
This excellent blend of a police story with a horror touch recreated cinema back in the middle of the seventies.Carpenter loves classic cinema but he is a genius and he creates something totally new and personal.Style with substance match perfectly, and shadows are spread everywhere.
7. The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
Not Rated | 91 min | Comedy, Horror
A noted professor and his dim-witted apprentice fall prey to their inquiring vampires, while on the trail of the ominous damsel in distress.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Jack MacGowran, Roman Polanski, Alfie Bass, Jessie Robins
Votes: 33,876
Perhaps Polanski's most beautiful movie, takes the vampire myth to another dimension, with respect and at the same time reworking it in a rare delight for our gaze.
8. The Trial (1962)
Not Rated | 119 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
An unassuming office worker is arrested and stands trial, but he is never made aware of his charges.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Arnoldo Foà, Jess Hahn, Billy Kearns
Votes: 24,041
A cinematic labyrinth that interprets Kafka's novel in a personal way, being faithful to the details but changing the form, and at points the meaning.An extremely beautiful film.
9. 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: 109,835 | Gross: $2.24M
The noir never felt more impressive, in this story of great cinematic knowledge and character study, which leaves all questions of morality open.
10. 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: 349,231 | Gross: $5.32M
The ultimate western movie, and Leone's best. A song about the end of an era, the end of heroes, an elegy so masterfully directed that leaves us speechless with its beauty.
11. The Palace (2023)
100 min | Comedy, Drama
A drama set on New Year's Eve 1999 in a luxurious Swiss hotel where the lives of hotel workers and various guests get intertwined.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Oliver Masucci, Fanny Ardant, John Cleese, Bronwyn James
Votes: 2,368
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