Sunday, November 27, 2011

My 100 Favourite Films (Today)

The fine folks over at Anomalous Material, a place where I have a regular gig coming up with various 10 Best lists, have asked their stable of film writers to come up with their choices for the best and/or their favourite films.  The results, including a master list as well as everyone's individual lists, will be out sometime in early 2012.  We were told that it could be  top 10, a top 25, a top 50, a top 100 or whatever.  I of course, went with the top 100 - choosing to name my favourites, as opposed to what are supposed to be the best (the latter being an unwinnable argument maker, the former being more personal and therefore less arguable).  I am not sure how set this list is (except for the top 14 or so), and therefore it could change tomorrow or the next day or the day after that (I am not easily satisfied).  I also plan on making another top 100 after I finish My Quest to See the 1000 Greatest Films, which again will probably bring some as-of-yet-unseen films into the fold and knock some of these out, but right here and right now, these are my picks for the top 100.  So, without further ado, here are my 100 Favourite Films.

1. The Red Shoes (Powell/Pressburger, 48)
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 68)
3. The Good the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 66)
4. Psycho (Hitchcock, 60)
5. Citizen Kane (Welles, 41)
6. Sunrise (Murnau, 27)
7. The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 55)
8. Singin' in the Rain (Kelly/Donan, 52)
9. Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 67)
10. Breathless (Godard, 60)
11. Touch of Evil (Welles, 58)
12. The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 39)
13. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 48)
14. The Searchers (Ford, 56)
15. Casablanca (Curtiz, 42)
16. City Lights (Chaplin, 31)
17. Annie Hall (Allen, 77)
18. Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 76)
19. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 54)
20. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 58)
21. The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 39)
22. King Kong (Cooper/Schoedsack, 33)
23. Star Wars (Lucas, 77)
24. Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 94)
25. M. Hulot's Holiday (Tati, 53)
26. The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 57)
27. Goodfellas (Scorsese, 90)
28. Johnny Guitar (Ray, 54)
29. Chinatown (Polanski, 74)
30. High Noon (Zinnemann, 52)
31. The General (Keaton/Bruckman, 26)
32. Brazil (Gilliam, 85)
33. Freaks (Browning, 32)
34. The Third Man (Reed, 49)
35. Meet Me in St. Louis (Minnelli, 44)
36. Blade Runner (Scott, 82)
37. Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 59)
38. The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell/Pressburger, 43)
39. Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich, 55)
40. 400 Blows (Truffaut, 59)
41. Rio Bravo (Hawks, 59)
42. House (Obayashi, 77)
43. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Weine, 20)
44. His Girl Friday (Hawks, 40)
45. The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 25)
46. Double Indemnity (Wilder, 44)
47. The Blue Angel (Von Sternberg, 30)
48. A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 71)
49. Make Way For Tomorrow (McCarey, 37)
50. Sunset Blvd. (Wilder, 50)
51. Rear Window (Hitchcock, 54)
52. Throne of Blood (Kurosawa, 57)
53. The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pasolini, 64)
54. The Last Laugh (Murnau, 24)
55. The Godfather Pts I & II (Coppola, 72/74)
56. The Kid (Chaplin, 21)
57. The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 69)
58. A Canterbury Tale (Powell/Pressburger, 44)
59. La Dolce Vita (Fellini, 60)
60. Viridiana (Bunuel, 61)
61. Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino, 09)
62. Written on the Wind (Sirk, 56)
63. Cairo Station (Chahine, 58)
64. L'Avventura (Antonioni, 60)
65. On The Waterfront (Kazan, 54)
66. Mulholland Dr. (Lynch, 01)
67. Pather Panchali (Ray, 55)
68. Pickup on South Street (Fuller, 53)
69. Rififi (Dassin, 55)
70. Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 68)
71. Rebel Without A Cause (Ray, 55)
72. The Big Sleep (Hawks, 46)
73. Voyage in Italy (Rossellini, 54)
74. Black Narcissus (Powell/Pressburger, 47)
75. Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 57)
76. The River Fuefuki (Kinoshita, 60)
77. Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 66)
78. Manhattan (Allen, 79)
79. Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau, 46)
80. Raging Bull (Scorsese, 80)
81. Sweet Smell of Success (Mackendrick, 57)
82. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Demy, 64)
83. Duck Soup (McCarey, 33)
84. The Wages of Fear (Clouzot, 53)
85. M (Lang, 31)
86. 8 1/2 (Fellini, 63)
87. In the Mood For Love (Wong, 00)
88. La Strada (Fellini, 54)
89. Nashville (Altman, 75)
90. Grand Illusion (Renoir, 37)
91. Week-End (Godard, 67)
92. Pickpocket (Bresson, 59)
93. Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 74)
94. Dazed and Confused (Linklater, 93)
95. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 25)
96. Senso (Visconti, 54)
97. Metropolis (Lang, 27)
98. The Phantom Carriage (Sjostrom, 21)
99. The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (Fassbinder, 72)
100. Vanishing Point (Sarafian, 71)

5 comments:

MP said...

Wow! Interesting list Kevyn! I like to read Top 100s because it gives a great look at one film lover's tastes. A Top 10 or even a Top 25 is much concise. While someone's Top 100 gives the opportunity to put some more obscure films and lesser known films.
However, 100 films is quickly done and many great films are put aside... I hope some day I'll have the patience to put together a Top 1000!

Kevyn Knox said...

After I finish the list (THE LIST!!!) I will gather together my own Top 1000.

Stevee Taylor said...

I love this list! Especially that The Red Shoes is number one. It's definitely in my top 5 after watching it for the first time last week. And Sunrise is awesome, too!

Kevyn Knox said...

Glad you like the list, and great to find a newfound Red Shoes fan. I have been lucky enough to see it on the big screen twice now - once on projected Bluray and once on 35mm at Film Forum. Love love love it, he gushed!!!

Kevyn Knox said...

Already I want to change the list. Films that could very well be added once I do the list proper (sometime near the end of the year): Mädchen in Uniform (the original), De Palma's Blow Out, Renoir's The River, The White Hell of Pitz Palü, Zazie dans le Metro, Wellman's Safe in Hell, Dieterle's Last Flight.....