Since it’s 2012, which means that the definitive Greatest Films Ever List, The Sight and Sound Poll, comes out this year I figured that for my annual list I would write 12 possible lists/versions of what my ballot might look like if I were asked to submit one.
These are in no particular order. I took 12 films that depending on the day I consider the best ever and placed them at #1 or #2 and then filled out the rest. I also made a concerted effort to place more recent films on the lists and tried to limit it to one film per director per list. I also didn’t place short films (under 60 minutes) on the list. Many of those would be #1’s on a list if included.
All lists really tell you more about the person making them so this shows my own biases. I noticed that the majority of non-US/UK films are from Scandinavia, France, and Japan, and that decade wise the 40’s are surprisingly not as represented. Perhaps because I tend to privilege films that were/are parts of new waves or rejections of classical film style.
There are also two #1’s that may/will/hopefully make people scratch their heads. The most notable is “The Man who Saves the World (AKA Turkish Star Wars)” (which I sort of purposely and not entirely tongue in cheekily placed ahead of Citizen Kane—-a perfect film that I love but is just so well renowned by now). “World” is by all traditional measures a terrible film. But it’s the ultimate example of so bad it’s art. Its techniques and narrative structure feels like its from another universe and is freeing in its ability to transgress all traditional western criteria of taste, cinematic convention, intellectual property, and the result is a singular, and bizarrely transcendent film experience.
The other #1 that may not be familiar to people is Harry Smith’s animated avant-garde film “Heaven and Earth Magic.” While the film is only 66 minutes it performs an epic and imaginative story of creation and transformation in mystical and Hermetic imagery, creating a new mystical/trance cinema experience in the process.
Some of the other #1’s include two CT Dryer films, the spiritual masterpiece “Ordet” and “The Passion of Joan of Arc” which may still be the artistic high point of film, Godard’s “Week End” which may have fulfilled its own prophecy of ending cinema (or ruining it forever depending on your take), Renoir’s “The Rules of the Game,” perhaps the most perfectly made film in history, Bresson’s Balthazar, which Godard said (and I agree) contains “the world in 90 minutes,” Bergman’s “Winter Light” which is the great director at his most distilled, pure, and profound and more…
The lists follow the bump…(I don’t think I did it, but apologies if a film shows up twice)
List 1
1. Au hasard Balthazar (1966) Bresson
2. The End of St. Petersburg (1927) Pudovkin, Doller
3. The 400 Blows (1959) Truffaut
4. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1922) Wiene
5. INLAND EMPIRE (2005) Lynch
6. Bad Day At Black Rock (1955) J. Sturges
7. Dawn of the Dead (1978) Romero
8. The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) Wise
9. Uncle Boonmee Who can Recall his Past Lives (2010) Weerasethakul
10. Little by Little (1970) Rouch
List 2
1. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Dryer
2. Rome: Open City (1945) Rossellini
3. Blue Velvet (1986) Lynch
4. Greed (1924) Von Stroheim
5. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Milestone
6. Paris, Texas (1984) Wenders
7. Repo Man (1984) Alex Cox
8. Little Big Man (1970) Penn
9. There Will be Blood (2007) PT Anderson
10. Do the Right Thing (1989) Lee
List 3
1. Week End (1967) Godard
2. Sunrise: A song of Two Humans (1927) Murnau
3. The Seven Samurai (1954) Kurosawa
4. Salesman ( 1968) Maysels
5. A Nous a la liberte (1931) Clair
6. The Straight Story (1999) Lynch
7. Mutiny on the Bounty (1931) Lloyd
8. Messiah of Evil (1973) Huyck, Katz.
9. El Topo (1971) Jodorowski
10. Dear Zachary: A letter to a son (2008) Kuenne
List 4
1. Ordet (The Word) (1955) Dryer
2. The General (1926) Keaton
3. On the Waterfront (1954) Kazan
4. Rashômon (1950) Kurosawa
5. Children of Paradise (1945) Carne
6. Star Wars (1977) Lucas
7. Raging Bull (1980) Scorsese
8. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) Allen
9. Repulsion (1965) Polanski
10. Hermógenes Cayo: Imagenerio (1969) Preloran
List 5
1. The Rules of the Game (1939) Renoir
2. Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves)(1948) De Sicca
3. Napoléon (1927) Gance
4. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Penn
5. N!ai: Portrait of a !Kng Woman (1979) Marshall
6. Pierre Le Fou (1965) Godard
7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Gondry
8. Casablanca (1942) Kurtz
9. Through a Glass Darkly (1961) Bergman
10. The Last Picture Show (1971) Bogdanovich
List 6
1. Heaven and Earth Magic (1957-62) Smith
2. Man With a Movie Camera (aka Living Russia) (1929) Vertov
3. Grand Illusion (1937) Renoir
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Kubrick
5. 2 or Three Things I know about her (66) Godard
6. Profondo rosso (Deep Red) (1975) Argento
7. Badlands (1973) Malick
8. The White Ribbon (2009) Haneke
9. Z (1969) Costa-Graves
10. Kiss Me Deadly (1955) Aldrich
List 7
1. Winter Light (1963) Bergman
2. City Lights (1931) Chaplin
3. Persona (1966) Bergman
4. Brief Encounter (1945) Lean
5. Ugetsu monogatari (Ugetsu) (1953)Mizoguchi
6. Chinatown (1974) Polanski
7. The Burmese Harp (1956) Ichikawa
8. Offret (The Sacrifice) (1986) Tarkovskiy
9. The Third Man (1949) Reed
10. Hausu (House) (1977) Ohbayashi
List 8
1. The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) Passolini
2. Un condamné à mort s’est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (A Man Escaped)(1956) Bresson
3. The Best Years of Our Lives (1947) Wyler
4. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Houston
5. Barry Lyndon (1975) Kubrick
6. I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932) LeRoy
7. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Capra
8. Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975) Weir
9. The Maltese Falcon (1941) Huston
10. Near Dark (1986) Bigelow
List 9
1. Apocalypse Now (1979) Copolla
2. Rome: Open City (1945) Rosselini
3. Battleship Potemkin (1925) Eisenstein
4. The Last Laugh (1924) Murnau
5. Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) Kawalerowicz
6. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Hooper
7. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Ford
8. Sunset Blvd. (1950) Wilder
9. Midnight Cowboy (1969) Schlesinger
10. Naroi: The Curse (2005) Shiraishi
List 10
1. Chronicle of a Summer (AKA Paris 1960) (1960) Morin/Rouch
2. The Crowd (1928) Vidor
3. M (1931) Lang
4. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972) Herzog
5. 42 Up (1998) Apted
6. Smiles of a Summer Night (1955 ) Bergman
7. Riget (The Kingdom) (1994-97) Von Trier
8. Ju-on: The Grudge (2002) Shimizu
9. Ashes and Diamonds (1958) Wajda
10. The Battle of Algiers (1966) Pontecorvo
List 11
1. The Man Who Saves the World (1982) Inanc
2. Citizen Kane (1941) Welles
3. L’Atalante (1934) Vigo
4. Singin’ in the Rain (1952) Donen, Kelly
5. Los Olivdados (The Young and the Damned) (1950) Bunuel
6. Taxi Driver (1976) Scorsese
7. Toy Story 3 (2010) Unkrich
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Forman
9. Night of the Living Dead(1968) Romero
10. Marty (1955) Mann
List 12
1. Tokyo Story (1953) Ozu
2. The Seventh Seal (1957) Bergman
3. 8½ (1963) Fellini
4. The Night of the Hunter (1955) Laughton
5. Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) (2001) Kunuk
6. The Lady Vanishes (1938) Hitchcock
7. Wings of Desire(1987) Wenders
8. Stop Making Sense (1984) Demme
9. Dead of Night (1945) various
10. The Apartment (1960) Wilder
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