Alice in den Städten (1974)

9/10 - What a joyous experience watching this again for the first time in many years. It’s such a marvelous piece of cinema. Unavailable for a long time on DVD, partly because it was shot in 16 mm and the original negatives were badly damaged, it’s now out on Criterion. The cinematography by Robby Müller, especially in the opening road-trip sequence through the U.S., has to be some of the most stunning in film history. And that’s saying a lot, considering his opening sequence to _Paris, Texas_ would be another candidate. You could stop on almost any frame in the first ten minutes, and it would make a photograph worthy of hanging in a museum. Just absolutely brilliant. I was so sad to read this morning that Müller has been suffering for some time from vascular dementia, a degenerative disease that has left him unable to walk or talk. He was one of the greatest cinematographers in the last part of the 20th century. He and Wenders, particularly in this film, lead directly to Jim Jarmusch (who used Müller extensively in his own films) and Hal Hartley. (who seemed to cop the score by CAN for his own movies.) There’s such an intimacy in the filmmaking, in the acting, the photography, the writing, and it made me sad that Wenders lost that in his work somewhere along the way. In the commentary that comes with the film, he sounds wistful and nostalgic talking about how simple the film was to make, just him and a few people in the crew, following their instincts and shooting whatever they felt like, and how it would be impossible to do now. And Alexandra and I felt nostalgic watching the film, thinking of what life was like in the early 1970s, with Polaroid cameras (the new technology at the time), neon-lit motels, and the carefree nature of the hippie spirit still in the air.
The story wouldn’t work today – cell phones would resolve the situation immediately, and people would be much more guarded and scared. A somewhat lost German photojournalist wandering aimlessly around the U.S. wouldn’t wind up travelling with a nine-year-old girl back to Germany to find her grandmother. Such a simple story, but Rudy Vogler (a delight to see again) and the young Yella Rottländer give excellent performances. If that’s even the right term. They inhabit the film beautifully. Along with many non-actors that Wenders used. This is post-Godard cinema that was vibrant with wonder and poetry. “What should we do now?” It feels so alive because they were basically living out an experience. You sense the joy of a 28-year-old German who loved rock and roll and American culture drifting around the U.S. taking pictures and making up a story. Just wandering. In several of his earlier films, Wenders captured better, perhaps, than any American director a certain magic and mystery of being on the road. Alexandra said parts of the movie reminded her of W.G. Sebald, and I can see that. Although Peter Handke is the more direct influence. But there’s definitely a literary and poetic quality that seems rare in cinema these days. In any case, it’s a lovely movie. It used to be in my 100 Favorite Films but had dropped out because I hadn’t seen it in so long. It will definitely go back on that list when I do one again.

The Hidden Fortress (1958)

9/10. I've been re-watching films I really liked that I've only seen once, as in this case, or haven't seen in many years. I think I liked this even more the second time. Terrific mixture of humor, action, adventure and something much deeper. Toshirô Mifune was such a bad ass. But a bad ass with incredible soul. And I may have finally realized that when all is said and done, Akira Kurosawa is my favorite director. I just love the way he constructs his films, the combination of many cinematic and literary elements, good stories, great characters, and amazing photography. Misa Uehara as Princess Yuki is wonderful, and the two clowns at the center of the film, Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara, are pretty amazing, giving us one of the funniest and most painful portrayals of human greed and stupidity ever put on film.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

9/10. Alexandra had never seen Aguirre, so we finally watched it last night. I had forgotten how utterly stunning the opening sequence is. Wish I could see this one day on a big screen. I did remember, though, the devastating power of the final scene. What a delirious descent into the madness of trying to colonize another people and land. Kinski was certifiable, but what a presence. Though I had seen this several times, it was the first time I had heard Herzog's commentary on the film. It's almost as entertaining as the movie itself.

Recent Screenings

La Moustache (2005) - French writer Emmanuel Carrère directs his first fictional feature film based on his own novel by the same name. As with most current French thrillers, the back of the DVD calls it "Hitchcockian." Evidently, no other director ever made a psychological thriller. But Hitch never made a dreamy, non-linear film like this. The one movie that came to mind for a while was actually Gaslight, which was directed by Geroge Cuckor, but even that comparison breaks down as the story plunges further into surreal territory. In fact, I can't think of any film that really resembles La Moustache. All I know is that I really enjoyed it.

The film concerns a man named Marc, who casually asks his wife in the opening scene what she would think if he shaved off the mustache he's had for years. She doesn't think it would be a good idea. And, as it turns out, it's not a good idea. After he shaves it off, she appears to not even notice. This increasingly irritates him. When they have dinner that night with two friends, neither of them, nor their little girl, notice either. Finally, on the way home, he gets really angry with his wife for not saying anything. To which she, with a look of terror, tells him that he's never had a mustache.

And so it goes. His colleagues at work don't notice anything either. Is this a conspiracy of some kind? As it turns out, we learn from the dinner scene that the wife's honesty may be questionable. Is she gaslighting him? Are his colleagues in on it? He sees a recent photo of himself with his mustache, yet everyone tells me he never had one. His wife tells him to see a psychiatrist, and he does seem to be having some kind of breakdown. As things deteriorate, he overhears his wife and his business partner whispering about having him committed. He flees his home, and after going around the city for a while in a taxi looking for his mother's house, he decides to take a last-minute flight to Hong Kong. He travels back and forth on the ferry between the island and the mainland. He grows his mustache back, stays in a rundown hotel and seems at peace as some kind of expatriate. Until events turn again.

It's hard to describe La Moustache. I can tell you the plot - or what I can fathom of the plot - and you can read the synopsis on back of the DVD, and it doesn't sound like much. How can you base an entire film on a guy who shaves off his mustache? I asked myself that many times as I would pick up, then put back the DVD. But it works. Carrère uses the psychological thriller as a means of exploring issues such as identity and our conception of reality. (I think.) Yet, he keeps the film moving well, never fully abandoning the thriller genre for a slog through philosophical meditation. It's sort of a cross between the more poetic explorations of Claire Denis, where plot doesn't seem to matter at all, and the conventional structures of something like Gaslight. (Or Hitchcock!)

Vincent Lindon, who has worked with Caire Denis, does an outstanding job as Marc, and the wonderful Emmanuelle Devos (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) plays his wife Agnès. These two actors already have seven César nominations between them, and it's a pleasure to watch them at work here as a successful professional couple living in Paris who seem to love each other but may be going through a difficult time. There are some powerful and tender moments between them. You know, when she's not gaslighting him. If she is. Or when he's not freaking out and tearing through the garbage to show her the hairs he trimmed off. If he actually had a mustache to begin with.

If you want everything ironed out at the end, you will be disappointed in La Moustache. But if you just let go and go for the ride, you may be pleasantly surprised. This is a cool little journey through territories of cinema we rarely get to see.

RECOMMENDED for those who can live without plot resolution. If you're trying to control everything in life, you're not going to like this. Men with mustaches may feel uneasy.

Frost/Nixon (2008) - Frank Langella and Michael Sheen deliver great performances as Richard Nixon and David Frost. And though they didn't get much attention when the film came out, the key supporting actors also do very well, including Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon and Matthew Macfadyen. The screenplay is by Peter Morgan, who wrote the original Broadway production which garnered so many accolades. The story of Nixon and Frost's now historic series of interviews in 1977 is fascinating, not only for the mythic elements of a fallen king jousting with a pretty-boy journalist out to prove something, but also for the wheeling and dealing Frost had to do to even get the interviews on the air in the U.S.

So with all this excellent acting, a good screenwriter and a great story, why did I feel somewhat empty afterwards? Two words: Ron Howard. Is there any other director in Hollywood who can produce such competently made yet hollow films? They look good. They move well. They usually have actors delivering excellent performances. They're entertaining. Yet they never add up to much. Frost/Nixon may be his best effort yet. It's definitely worth seeing, especially for the acting. It's a good movie. Very good in some ways. But given this material and this cast, it should've been a profound movie. In the hands of another director, it could've been.

Swing Vote (2008) - This propaganda film disguised as a comedy is meant to encourage participation in our electoral system, but its obvious emotional manipulation, its condescending attitude towards its audience, and the participation of real-life figures like Arianna Huffington, Bill Maher, Larry King and others left me feeling more cynical than ever about the twisted and parasitic relationship between the media and our political system. The election of 2008 plays out like a repeat of Bush-Gore, with the fate of the country hinging on one poor, dumb drunk named Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) whose vote wasn't completed because of a technical glitch. (I did my best to get past that ridiculous set-up.) Both presidential candidates and their teams come to the small town - you know, "real" America, unlike the cities, where everyone's a fake - to convince Bud to vote for them. While Swing Vote is touted as a bi-partisan film, I found it interesting that both candidates are played by longtime Republican supporters, Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper. Nathan Lane and Stanley Tucci play their campaign managers, and you can imagine from the casting what that's going to be like. Bud's daughter, who's miraculously intelligent and wise despite coming from two somewhat slow parents with substance-abuse problems, is the real heart of the story, and she's played well by young Madeline Carroll. She and George Lopez, as a local TV news producer, are the best parts of the film. Costner is okay, but he gets annoying after a while. There are some funny moments here and there, especially as the candidates change their platform positions to win over Bud, who doesn't even know what he thinks about anything, but you have to wade through a lot of bad writing for those little treats. It's hard to argue with the premise that every vote counts, especially after Bush-Gore, but after watching the cynical, self-serving media-political complex try so hard to convince me of that fact, my initial reaction is to skip the next election. The least one can do is to skip this film.

The Hallelujah Trail (1965) - This wonderful comedy western tells the story of an oncoming harsh winter and panic among miners in Denver because they've run out whiskey. The liquor distributor (Brian Keith), who's almost bankrupt, leads 40 wagons of precious cargo to Denver. Indians want to steal it. A temperance group wants to stop it. One group of cavalry is sent to guard the wagon train, another is forced to escort the temperance group to Denver. Meanwhile, Irish drivers on the wagon train threaten to go on strike. Burt Lancaster plays a cavalry commander and man's man battling the feminist-temperance leader, played with spark by Lee Remick. Despite his toughness, she continually outwits him, getting him to do more and more that he doesn't want to do. The film has a funny, well-executed meta-fiction element, with a serious-sounding off-screen narrator growing steadily confused as he tries to map out the story for the audience. And the big showdown, when all of the various groups collide in a raging sandstorm, belongs on a list of great comedy sequences in cinema. Under-appreciated director John Sturges (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral) keeps the action moving, and Robert Surtees delivers spectacular Technicolor cinematography of the glorious landscapes around Shiprock, New Mexico. RECOMMENDED.

Angel and the Badman (1947) - John Wayne stars in this somewhat unusual film that also marks his first effort (of 20) at producing. The movie literally opens with a bang, as Wayne has a shootout and then rides, wounded, for miles through the desolate west while the opening credits roll. By the time they stop, he collapses near an isolated ranch that happens to be run by a Quaker family. Nursed back to health by the lovely daughter, played by Gail Russell, he spends the rest of the film struggling between his love for her, curiosity about her funny Quaker pacifism, and his own desire to settle down on one hand, and his own gunslinging ways, a sheriff determined to hang him, and the hard realities of the west on the other. A little corny at times, but for 1947, it's a thoughtful look at violence, masculinity, and the tension between Christian ideals and the quest for power. It makes me wonder: How would Jesus have dealt with the American West?

Twilight (2008) - Yawn. A toothless vampire love story. Perfect for an uptight, prudish, adolescent-souled society that yearns for real passion. La Reina read the book (has anyone ever seen a man reading Twilight?) and thought the movie was okay but didn't capture the story as well. Pattison and Stewart have some chemistry, but it's mostly squandered. The movie won't kill you - it moves well enough and has some good moments, but it's ultimately forgettable. You want vampire passion, skip this and (re-) watch Herzog's Nosferatu.

The Greatest Films of All Time: 101-200

"I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like."

John Huston

Further into the rabbit hole with my exploration of the world's Greatest Films of All Time. The initial post included an Introduction and Films 1-20. [The other posts in this series include Films 21-50, Films 51-100, and The Directors.]

You can skip the following brief intro if you've already read the other posts.

Briefly, I researched and compiled 30 lists of Greatest Films from various sources around the globe, including critics such as Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum; popular magazines like Time and Time Out (UK); films journals such as Sight & Sound, Cahiers du cinema, Kinovedcheskie Zapiski (Russia); and a range of Film Archives from countries like China, India, Ecuador, Israel, Greece, and Finland.

The 30 polls produced a total of 580 films. When films weren't ranked in the polls, I assigned a numeric value depending on the total number of films included (eg. 100 films = 20 points). So, the list I'm presenting is not a ranking of films I personally think are the greatest of all time. It's simply a reflection of results from across 30 polls voted on by hundreds of other people.

My quest was twofold: To see which works were considered the masterpieces of cinema from a variety of international sources, and to see if and how the perception of great films and great directors varied from one region of the world to another.

Films 101-200

Luis Buñuel's delicious and disturbing Exterminating Angel, ranked #177 and among my own 100 Favorite Films.

Since this list is pretty long, I'm not going to offer much comment. There were a few points of interest, however.

Several classic comedies from the 1930s and 1940s, which seemed ignored in the more serious-minded Top 100, show up in this list. Howard Hawks' two defining screwball classics appear: Bringing Up Baby (#112) and His Girl Friday (#155) , which may have the fastest-spoken dialog in cinema history. Wisecracking only for the initiated.

Ernst Lubitsch and Preston Sturges each notch two entries, the former with the delightful Trouble in Paradise (#118) and The Shop Around the Corner (#185), and the latter with the magnificent The Lady Eve (#119) and Sullivan's Travels (#185). The only Marx Brothers film in the Top 200, Duck Soup (#125), shows up. And two of my favorite comedies - George Cuckor's wonderful The Philadelphia Story (#144) and Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (#152) - deservedly make the list.

The first films from the 21st century appear: David Lynch's skewed riff on Sunset Blvd., Mulholland Drive (#173) and Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love (#188).

The famous British directing team of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, who didn't have any films in the Top 100, wind up with four in this list: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (#109); A Matter of Life and Death (#113); Black Narcissus (#138), which I highly recommend; and The Red Shoes (#164).

Here's the full list:

101. (tie) Notti di Cabiria, Le [Nights of Cabiria] (1957) Federico Fellini 184.5
101. (tie) On the Waterfront (1954) Elia Kazan 184.5
103. Zangiku monogatari [Story of the Late Chrysanthemums] (1939) Kenji Mizoguchi 184
104. My Darling Clementine (1946) John Ford 181.5
105. Thiassos, O [Traveling Players] (1975) Theodoros Angelopoulos 178
106. (tie) Jazz Singer, The (1927) Alan Crosland 175
106. (tie) Olvidados, Los [The Young and the Damned] (1950) Luis Buñuel 175
108. Nashville (1975) Robert Altman 172.5
109. Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The (1943) Michael Powel & Emeric Pressburger 170.5
110. Partie de Campagne [A Day in the Country] (1936) Jean Renoir 170
111. Pandora's Box (1928) G.W. Pabst 165
112. Bringing up Baby (1938) Howard Hawks 158.5
113. Matter Of Life And Death, A (1946) Michael Powel & Emeric Pressburger 157.5
114. King Kong (1933) Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack 154
115. Condamné à mort s'est échappé, Un, ou Le vent souffle où il veut [A Man Escaped] (1956) Robert Bresson 150.5
116. Journal d'un curé de campagne [Diary of a Country Priest] (1950) Robert Bresson 149
117. Sherlock Jr. (1924) Buster Keaton 147
118. Trouble in Paradise (1932) Ernst Lubitsch 145.5
119. Lady Eve, The (1941) Preston Sturges 143
120. Belle et la bête, La [Beauty and the Beast] (1946) Jean Cocteau 141
121. Battaglia di Algeri, La [The Battle of Algiers] (1965) Gillo Pontecorvo 138.5
122. Blaue Engel, Der [Blue Angel] (1930) Josef von Sternberg 135
123. (tie) Letzte Mann, Der [The Last Laugh] (1924) F.W. Murnau 130
123. (tie) Zemyla [Earth] (1930) Aleksandr Dovzhenko 130
125. Duck Soup (1933) Leo McCarey 128.5
126. Crowd , The (1928) King Vidor 128
127. Nanook of the North (1922) Robert Flaherty 127
128. (tie) Play Time (1967) Jacques Tati 125
128. (tie) Umberto D (1952) Vittorio De Sica 125
130. Maltese Falcon, The (1941) John Huston 120.5
131. Ran (1985) Akira Kurosawa 117.5
132. (tie) Great Dictator, The (1940) Charlie Chaplin 117
132. (tie) Jetée, La [The Jetty] (1962) Chris Marker 117

Chris Marker's 1962 science-fiction film La Jetée, a 28-minute work composed of still photographs. It served as the inspiration for Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys (1995).

134. (tie) Aparajito (1956) Satyajit Ray 115
134. (tie) Apur Sansa [The World of Apu] (1959) Satyajit Ray 115
136. Clockwork Orange, A (1971) Stanley Kubrick 108.5
137. Nuit et Brouillard [Night and Fog] (1955) Alain Resnais 107
138. (tie) Black Narcissus (1947) Michael Powel & Emeric Pressburger 106.5
138. (tie) Vredens dag [Day of Wrath] (1943) Carl Dreyer 106.5
140. (tie) Shoah (1985) Claude Lanzmann 105
140. (tie) Ukigumo [Floating Clouds] (1955) Mikio Naruse 105
140. (tie) Vampires, Les (1915-16) Louis Feuillade 105
143. Performance (1970) Nicholas Roeg 103
144. (tie) Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) Chantal Ackerman 102
144. (tie) Philadelphia Story, The (1940) George Cukor 102
146. Treasure of Sierra Madre, The (1948) John Huston 101.5
147. Senso (1954) Luchino Visconti 101
148. (tie) Johnny Guitar (1954) Nicholas Ray 100
148. (tie) Stagecoach (1939) John Ford 100
148. (tie) Vivre sa vie [My Life to Live] (1962) Jean-Luc Godard 100
148. (tie) Wind, The (1928) Victor Sjöström 100
152. It Happened One Night (1934) Frank Capra 98.5
153. (tie) Monsieur Verdoux (1947) Charlie Chaplin 98
153. (tie) Star Wars (1977) George Lucas 98
155. His Girl Friday (1940) Howard Hawks 97.5
156. (tie) Foolish Wives (1922) Erich von Stroheim 95
156. (tie) Once Upon a Time in America (1983) Sergio Leone 95
158. Paisà [Paisan] (1946) Roberto Rossellini 93
159. Manhattan (1979) Woody Allen 92
160. Laura (1944) Otto Preminger 91
161. Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt [Berlin, Symphony of a City] (1927) Walter Ruttmann 90
162. (tie) Olympia, Parts 1 and 2 (1938) Leni Riefenstahl 89
162. (tie) Sweet Smell of Success, The (1957) Alexander Mackendrick 89
164. (tie) Vangelo secondo Matteo, Il [The Gospel According to Saint Matthew] (1964) Pier Paolo Pasolini 87.5
164. (tie) Red Shoes, The (1948) Michael Powel & Emeric Pressburger 87.5
166. Ukigusa [Floating Weeds] (1959) Yasujiro Ozu 85.5
167. (tie) Banshun [Late Spring] (1949) Yasujiro Ozu 85
167. (tie) Jalsaghar [The Music Room] (1958) Satyajit Ray 85
167. (tie) Oktyabr [October] (1927) Sergei M. Eisenstein 85
170. 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle [2 or 3 Things I Know About Her] (1967) Jean-Luc Godard 83
171. Rocco e i suoi fratelli [Rocco and His Brothers] (1960) Luchino Visconti 82.5
172. Las hurdes [Land without Bread] (1932) Luis Buñuel 82
173. (tie) Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Le [The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie] (1972) Luis Buñuel 81.5
173. (tie) Mulholland Dr. (2001) David Lynch 81.5
175. (tie) Piano, The (1993) Jane Campion 81
175. (tie) Sans Soleil [Sunless] (1983) Chris Marker 81
177. Ángel exterminador, El [Exterminating Angel] (1962) Luis Buñuel 80.5
178. (tie) Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Arthur Penn 80
178. (tie) Maman et la putain, La [The Mother and the Whore] (1973) Jean Eustache 80
178. (tie) Scarlet Empress, The (1934) Josef von Sternberg 80
181. Stalker (1979) Andrei Tarkovsky 79
182. (tie) Viskningar och rop [Cries and Whispers] (1972) Ingmar Bergman 78
182. (tie) Kaagaz Ke Phool [Paper Flowers] (1959) Guru Dutt 78
184. Nema-ye Nazdik [Close-Up] (1990) Abbas Kiarostami 77
185. Shop Around the Corner, The (1940) Ernst Lubitsch 76.5
186. Sullivan's Travels (1941) Preston Sturges 76
187. Do the Right Thing (1989) Spike Lee 75.5
188. Fa yeung nin wa [In The Mood For Love] (2000) Wong Kar Wai 75
189. (tie) Sayat Nova [Color of Pomegranates] (1968) Sergei Parajanov 75
189. (tie) Terra trema [The Earth Trembles] (1948) Luchino Visconti 75
191. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Vincente Minnelli 73
192. (tie) Buono, il brutto, il cattivo., Il [The Good, the Bad and the Ugly] (1966) Sergio Leone 72
192. (tie) Mean Streets (1973) Martin Scorsese 72
192. (tie) Paths of Glory (1957) Stanley Kubrick 72
195. Brief Encounter (1945) David Lean 71.5
196. (tie) Barefoot Contessa, The (1954) Joseph Mankiewicz 71
196. (tie) Casque d'or (1952) Jacques Becker 71
196. (tie) Deer Hunter, The (1978) Michael Cimino 71
196. (tie) Moonfleet (1955) Fritz Lang 71
196. (tie) Plaisir, Le (1952) Max Ophüls 71
196. (tie) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Walt Disney 71

Films ranked 101-200 that show up in my own list of Favorite 100 Films: Bringing Up Baby, The Maltese Falcon, Ran, The Philadelphia Story, It Happened One Night, His Girl Friday, Manhattan, and The Exterminating Angel.

The final installment in my series will be on the men and women who directed the Greatest Films of All Time. I encountered numerous surprises while taking a look at the directors who showed up in the 30 polls. In fact, I would go as far to say that the results changed my thinking about some of our masters of cinema. The cultural variations were also fascinating.

In the meantime, I'd be curious, once again, to know some of your own experiences with these films. And which ones would you put in your own Top 100?

Coming soon to this blog - The Directors!

The Greatest Films of All Time: 51-100

You can argue forever about the content of a film, its aesthetic, its style, even its moral posture; but the crucial imperative is to avoid boredom at all costs.

Luis Buñuel

Another installment in my exploration of the world's Greatest Films of All Time. The initial post included an Introduction and Films 1-20. [The other posts in this series include Films 21-50, Films 101-200, and The Directors.]

You can skip the following brief intro if you've already read the other posts.

Briefly, I researched and compiled 30 lists of Greatest Films from various sources around the globe, including critics such as Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum; popular magazines like Time and Time Out (UK); films journals such as Sight & Sound, Cahiers du cinema, Kinovedcheskie Zapiski (Russia); and a range of Film Archives from countries like China, India, Ecuador, Israel, Greece, and Finland.

The 30 polls produced a total of 580 films. When films weren't ranked in the polls, I assigned a numeric value depending on the total number of films included (eg. 100 films = 20 points). So, the list I'm presenting is not a ranking of films I personally think are the greatest of all time. It's simply a reflection of results from across 30 polls voted on by hundreds of other people.

My quest was twofold: To see which works were considered the masterpieces of cinema from a variety of international sources, and to see if and how the perception of great films and great directors varied from one region of the world to another.

Films 51-100

51. The Third Man (1949) Carol Reed 396.5 points - 7 mentions
52. Sunset Blvd. (1950) Billy Wilder 379 - 7
53. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) Robert Bresson 373.5 - 7
54. Apocalypse Now (1979) Francis Ford Coppola 371 - 7
55. Ivan Groznyy I and/or II [Ivan the Terrible] (1944) Sergei M. Eisenstein 370 - 7
56. Raging Bull (1980) Martin Scorsese 367.5 - 7
57. Fanny och Alexander (1982) Ingmar Bergman 359.5 - 6
58. North by Northwest (1959) Alfred Hitchcock 357 - 6
59. Modern Times (1936) Charlie Chaplin 355 - 7
60. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) Orson Welles 350.5 - 6
61. Il Gattopardo [The Leopard] (1963) Luchino Visconti 347.5 - 7
62. Rio Bravo (1959) Howard Hawks 340.5 - 6
63. L'Age d'or (1930) Luis Buñuel 340 - 7
64. The Birth of a Nation (1915) D.W. Griffith 329 - 7
65. Barry Lyndon (1975) Stanley Kubrick 317.5 - 8
66. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Stanley Kubrick 317 - 6
67. Persona (1966) Ingmar Bergman 316 - 8
68. Pierrot le fou (1965) Jean Luc Godard 315.5 - 7
69. Viridiana (1961) Luis Buñuel 309.5 - 6
70. Pickpocket (1959) Robert Bresson 303.5 - 7
71. The Wizard of Oz (1939) Victor Fleming 292 - 7
72. Il Conformista (1970) Bernardo Bertolucci 288.5 - 5
73. Jules et Jim (1962) François Truffaut 279 - 6
74. All About Eve (1950) Joseph Mankiewicz 275 - 6
75. Rear Window (1954) Alfred Hitchcock 272.5 - 4
76. Sanshô dayû [Sansho the Bailiff] (1954) Kenji Mizoguchi 267 - 6
77. La Strada (1954) Federico Fellini 264.5 - 4
78. Notorious (1946) Alfred Hitchcock 263.5 - 7
79. The Apartment (1960) Billy Wilder 248.5 - 5
80. Amarcord (1973) Federico Fellini 247.5 - 6
81. L'Année dernière à Marienbad [Last Year at Marienbad] (1961) Alain Resnais 243.5 - 7
82. Gertrud (1964) Carl Dreyer 243 - 6
83. The Wild Bunch (1969) Sam Peckinpah 241 - 5
84. Roma, città aperta [Rome, Open City] (1945) Roberto Rossellini 236 - 6
85. Hiroshima mon amour (1959) Alain Resnais 234 - 4
86. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) Max Ophüls 233.5 - 6
87. (tie) Nosferatu (1922) F.W. Murnau 232 - 7
87. (tie) Madame de… (1953) Max Ophüls 232 - 4
89. (tie) Double Indemnity (1944) Billy Wilder 231 - 6
89. (tie) Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes [Aguirre: The Wrath of God] (1972) Werner Herzog 231 - 5
91. To Be or Not to Be (1942) Ernst Lubitsch 227.5 - 4
92. Ikiru (1952) Akira Kurosawa 227 - 6
93. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) Sergio Leone 225.5 - 5
94. Broken Blossoms (1919) D.W. Griffith 219.5 - 6
95. Napoleon (1927) Abel Gance 210 - 5
96. Dekalog (1989) Krzysztof Kieslowski 209 - 6
97. (tie) Blade Runner (1982) Ridley Scott 197 - 5
97. (tie) Un chien andalou (1929) Luis Buñuel 197 - 5
99. Schindler's List (1993) Steven Spielberg 195.5 - 5
100. (tie) Freaks (1932) Tod Browning 195 - 4
100. (tie) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) John Ford 195 - 4

Dekalog: Krzysztof Kieslowski's 1989 Polish mini-series on the Ten Commandments

Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder seem to have done particularly well in this section of the list, with three films each. In the end, Hitchcock wound up with the most films in the Top 100, a total of five. Wilder, along with Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini, had four films in the Top 100. Directors with three films included: Buñuel, Chaplin, Coppola, Dreyer, Godard, Griffith, Kubrick, Kurosawa and Welles.
Whereas the most recent work in Films 1-50 was from 1976 (Taxi Driver) and the average year of production was 1949, Films 51-100 tended to be a little newer. The most recent work was from 1993 (Schindler's List) and there were four films from the 1980s: Raging Bull, Fanny and Alexander, Dekalog and Blade Runner. The average year of production was 1956.

Technically, Kieslowski's Dekalog is not a motion picture but a series of ten one-hour programs shown on Polish television. But it often gets included in polls of great "films." And, according to IMDB, Stanley Kubrick said Dekalog was the only masterpiece he could name in his lifetime. So, there. Whatever it is, it's one of the most powerful works I've ever seen.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was Kubrick's 1975 period piece, Barry Lyndon, ranked #65, just ahead of the more well-known Dr. Strangelove. Again, these two Kubrick's films didn't do well outside of the US/UK polls, though Cahiers du cinema did include Barry Lyndon. I've never seen this one by Kubrick and would be curious to hear from others who have.

Another surprise was Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West cracking the Top 100 at #93, even ahead of his own Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo [The Good, the Bad and the Ugly] (1966), which I always thought was more popular - it's currently ranked #5 at IMDB. Three other westerns showed up in Films 51-100: Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo, ranked #62, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, at #83, and John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, tied at #100. (Ford's The Searchers was the top western at #16.) Of the five westerns in the Top 100, I prefer The Wild Bunch.Peckinpah's western also made it two films for William Holden in the Top 100, along with Sunset Blvd. (#52)

Other actors who showed up in multiple films: John Wayne (The Searchers, Rio Bravo, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) Jimmy Stewart (Vertigo, Rear Window and It's a Wonderful Life), Cary Grant (North by Northwest, Notorious), Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca, Notorious), Robert De Niro (Godfather II, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita, 8½) , Jean-Paul Belmondo (À bout de souffle, Pierrot le fou), Jack Lemmon (The Aprtment, Some Like it Hot), and, of course, Peter Lorre (M, Casablanca). Charlie Chaplin also starred in all 3 of his films: The Gold Rush, City Lights and Modern Times.

The actor who showed up the most in the Top 100: Orson Welles. He starred in all three of his own productions (Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil and The Magnificent Ambersons), and also gave an unforgettable performance as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's The Third Man (#51). And, of course, there's his little-known but amazing tour de force as Munchkin #27 in The Wizard of Oz.I didn't officially track actors in the list; I'm just eye-balling the film titles - so there may be others who appeared in multiple films. (Ah!, Claude Rains, for example: Notorious, Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia. And Anthony Quinn: Lawrence of Arabia and La Strada.)

Freaks, directed by Tod Browning (Dracula 1931), was an interesting case. It didn't show up on any US/UK lists, and I always considered it a minor cult film, but it was very highly regarded in other areas. The Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique chose it as one of the 20 Greatest Films of All Time, the Fundación Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela as one of the 24 Greatest of All Time, and the Cinémathèque Française as one of the 33 Greatest. It also ranked highly in the other French poll - #21 (tied) - the Cahiers du cinema Top 100.

It's interesting to note how much of a drop off there is in votes received between the #1 film, Citizen Kane, and #100, Freaks and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Kane showed up in all 30 polls and had a total of 1,735 points. The films at #100 each only appeared in four polls and had a total of 195 points. Only 16 films showed up in at least half of the 30 polls. After that, the number of movies considered "greatest" begins to grow exponentially. From that information, I would say that any kind of film canon must exist in a fluid state. Maybe that's why the IMDB Classic Film Board Top 200, which changes every two months, strikes me as a useful poll.

In the end, there were 46 English-language films from the US/UK in the Top 100. Non-English European films accounted for 47 titles (if you include Russia). Among individual European countries, France accounted for the most productions, with 19. Asia only had 7 titles in the Top 100, six of them from Japan.

Films ranked 51-100 that show up in my own list of Favorite 100 Films: Sunset Blvd., Apocalypse Now, North by Northwest, Pierrot le fou, The Wild Bunch, Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes [Aguirre: The Wrath of God], Double Indemnity, and Dekalog.

I would like to hear about your own experiences with the films listed 51-100. Faves, ones you can't stand, etc.

Until the next reel. . . .

Films 101-200

The Greatest Films of All Time: The Directors

All of the men in this photograph either directed, wrote (Carriere) or produced (Silberman) films listed in the Greatest Films of All Time. From a 1972 lunch given by George Cukor for Luis Buñuel.

Back Row from left: Robert Mulligan, William Wyler, George Cukor, Robert Wise, Jean-Claude Carriere and Serge Silberman
Front Row from left: Billy Wilder, George Stevens, Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock and Rouben Mamoulian

Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals.
Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art.
The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.
John Ford

This is the final part of my exploration of the world's Greatest Films of All Time. The other posts were Introduction and Films 1-20, Films 21-50, Films 51-100, and Films 101-200.

Briefly, I researched and compiled 30 lists of Greatest Films from various sources around the globe, including critics such as Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum; popular magazines like Time and Time Out (UK); films journals such as Sight & Sound, Cahiers du cinema, Kinovedcheskie Zapiski (Russia); and a range of Film Archives from countries like China, India, Ecuador, Israel, Greece, and Finland.

The 30 polls produced a total of 580 films. When films weren't ranked in the polls, I assigned a numeric value depending on the total number of films included (eg. 100 films = 20 points). So, the list I'm presenting is not a ranking of films I personally think are the greatest of all time. It's simply a reflection of results from across 30 polls voted on by hundreds of other people.

My quest was twofold: To see which works were considered the masterpieces of cinema from a variety of international sources, and to see if and how the perception of great films and great directors varied from one region of the world to another.

The Directors

The most eye-opening part of my exploration of the Greatest Films of All Time was digging through the results by Director. While the Top 200 Films on my list provided some surprises, the overall landscape wasn't that different from what I expected. Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Seven Samurai, Tokyo Story, À bout de souffle, Rules of the Game, 8 ½ . . . they were all there. Some of the exact rankings may have surprised me, and many of the cultural differences were new to me, but the list of titles didn't challenge my concept of world cinema.

Akira Kurosawa

As I started looking at directors, however, I was genuinely surprised by some of the results, and, as the process went on, my own thinking about cinema was actually transformed. It became clear, for example, that some directors whose names we have attached to one or two "important" films actually created numerous works of exceptional quality over the span of their careers. We may not discuss these other titles very much, if at all, but they were good enough to be selected by someone somewhere as being among the greatest motion pictures ever.

My own quest to compile a list of the greatest films of all time is, I think, part of the problem. I am guilty, along with other list-makers, of burying alive many fantastic films. So, yes, we know Fritz Lang's M or Metropolis from numerous polls and books on cinema. But what about his other work?

Luckily, some polls can also un-bury films. As it turns out, Fritz Lang had six other titles that were mentioned at least once. Did you have any idea that after 30 polls and 580 total movies that Fritz Lang would rank fifth (tied) in Total Films Mentioned, ahead of Bergman, Kurosawa and Fellini? How often do we drop his name in a conversation about cinema? Because Metropolis was made in 1927 and M in 1931, don't we exile Lang to that shadowy land of "silent movies" or "really old movies"? Yet his last film was made in 1960, and two of his later works - The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959) and Moonfleet (1955) - were listed among 100 Greatest Films by Jonathan Rosenbaum and Cahiers du cinema respectively.

I don't mean to imply that the number of films included on the list equals greatness. For one thing, some directors are simply more prolific than others. Andrei Tarkovsky (Andrei Roublev) has 11 films listed on IMDB; Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) has 172. Some directors may have many films of high quality but few that we consider truly great. For that reason, I'm listing both the total number of titles from all 580 films mentioned, and then the titles from the Top 200. There were several differences between the lists.

I also tracked the overall number of times that a director was mentioned. This may be an even better gauge of their current reputation. John Cassavetes and Francis Ford Coppola both had five films listed, for example. But Cassavetes was only mentioned six times in total, whereas Coppola was mentioned 30 times. I find it interesting that Cassavetes is respected enough to have five films mentioned, but that no one can really decide which film of his to call "the greatest." Only A Woman Under the Influence (1974) was chosen twice. Perhaps this signals that the director made an important contribution to cinema through his life and overall body of work, but not necessarily with a single film.

Howard Hawks had 11 films in the Greatest Films of All Time. Here he's with Angie Dickinson on the set of Rio Bravo (#62)

Ultimately, of course, one can't measure greatness with a lot of numbers on a spreadsheet. That's not the purpose of my exploration. What I hope is that by seeing some of these numbers, we can be challenged to re-think our ideas about cinema, to question perceptions we may have formed a long time ago, to see certain movies and directors in a fresh way. Most of all, I hope we can make little discoveries and be intrigued enough to explore some cinematic paths we hadn't previously considered.

Total Films Mentioned (out of 30 polls - 580 titles)

There were 31 directors who had at least five films mentioned. I've listed them in numerical order. When there was a tie, I listed them in alphabetical order.

1. Jean Luc Godard – 12
2. Howard Hawks – 11
3. Luis Buñuel – 10
4. Alfred Hitchcock - 9

5. (TIE)
Charlie Chaplin – 8
John Ford – 8
Stanley Kubrick – 8
Fritz Lang – 8

9. (TIE)
Yasujiro Ozu – 7
Jean Renoir – 7
Alain Resnais – 7
Luchino Visconti – 7
Orson Welles – 7

14. (TIE)
Ingmar Bergman – 6
Robert Bresson – 6
Federico Fellini – 6
Ernst Lubtisch – 6
Satyajit Ray - 6
Jacques Rivette – 6
Roberto Rossellini – 6

21. (TIE)
John Cassavetes – 5
Francis Ford Coppola – 5
George Cukor – 5
Rainer Werner Fassbinder – 5
Akira Kurosawa – 5
Kenji Mizoguchi – 5
F.W. Murnau – 5
Max Ophüls – 5
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger – 5
Josef von Sternberg – 5
Billy Wilder - 5

Quite frankly, I was astonished by the top three results. My guess probably would've been Hitchcock and Bergman at #1 and #2, and then, I don't know - maybe John Ford.

As it turns out, I had just started reading Richard Brody's new book on Jean Luc Godard when I analyzed the directors included in the 30 polls. Not only was I stunned by Godard having the most films, but I was also surprised by some of the titles mentioned. Many of his 1960s films showed up, but four of his later films appeared, including: Sauve qui peut (la vie) [Every Man for Himself] (1980), which Godard considered his "second" first film after years of experimenting in video; Passion (1982) ; King Lear (1987); and Nouvelle Vague (1990).

Godard is barely a blip on the radar in the U.S. right now. Yet, a combination of the results of these polls, and the elucidation of his later work in Brody's book, made me re-evaluate his career. I still believe his work in the 1960s remains vitally important in the history of cinema, serving as a kind of dividing line between an old and a new cinema. But I'm beginning to wonder if 50 years from now, his later career may also prove revolutionary, even though we can't see its implications at this point in time. Brody raises several fascinating and challenging questions about the very nature of cinema and its relationship to society that he claims Godard has been tackling in his post-1960s work, largely in isolation, and often with few people seeing the actual films. In some ways, I'm reminded of Coltrane's last years, producing music that people are still - 40 years later - barely catching up with. Could that be the case with Godard? I don't know. But instead of ignoring his later work, as I've done for the most part, I've decided to start watching some of the films.

I was also impressed that Godard did well across the world. He was one of only two directors, along with Buñuel, who had four or more films mentioned in all three major regional groupings: US/UK, Europe and Asia. The National Film Archive of India especially liked Godard, choosing five of his films in its Top 100, more even than native son Satyajit Ray, who only had four. He also showed up in Russia and Venezuela, and, in total, appeared in 24 out of the 30 polls.

Other directors didn't have the same global results. Howard Hawks, for example, had 11 films mentioned overall, but only one showed up in the Asian polls: Red River (1948). And, in total, he only appeared in 12 out of the 30 polls.

Several other directors were mentioned numerous times overall but didn't do very well in the Asian polls. Bergman, Kubrick, Powell & Pressburger, Visconti, and Wilder only had one film each that was mentioned. The directors mentioned most often in the Asian polls (out of 135 films):

1. Godard – 6
2. Satyajit Ray – 5
3. (TIE)
Buñuel – 4
Kurosawa – 4
Ozu – 4
4. (TIE)
Antonioni – 3
Chaplin – 3
Fellini – 3
Hitchcock – 3
Lang – 3
Mizoguchi – 3

Belgian director Chantal Ackerman, one of only three women with films in the Top 200. Her 1975 effort, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, was the highest ranked film by a woman director, at #143, and maybe the movie with the longest title.

Total Films Mentioned in the Top 200

But what about the Top 200? Having a movie mentioned once by a film archive in a small country is one thing, but what about the titles mentioned most often? The results were different than the overall list of 580 films, but there were still some surprises. Here are the directors with four or more films listed in the Top 200 Films:

1. Buñuel – 7
2. (TIE)
Bergman – 5
Chaplin – 5
Fellini – 5
Godard – 5
Hitchcock – 5
Kubrick – 5
3. (TIE)
Bresson – 4
Dreyer – 4
Ford – 4
Kurosawa – 4
Powell & Pressburger – 4
Ray – 4
Visconti – 4
Wilder – 4

If you had told me when I started this exploration that Luis Buñuel would wind up with the most films in the Top 200, and with two more than the next closest director, I would've figured you were either Spanish or slightly insane, or both (Hugo, where are you?!) Again, I would have guessed Hitchcock. Maybe that's a cultural prejudice. Though, obviously, Hitch did just fine for himself in these polls. But the results for Buñuel have definitely challenged my own notions of cinema. I feel like re-watching some of his films now, and investigating ones I've never seen. And maybe I'll finally read his autobiography, My Last Sigh, which was given to me as a gift by a good friend (thank you!) and which La Reina recently read and loved.

Even the list of Buñuel's films that showed up in the Top 200 surprised me:

#63 - Âge d'or, L' (1930)
#69 - Viridiana (1961)
#97 - Un chien andalou (1929)
#107 - Olvidados, Los (1950)
#173 - Hurdes, Las [Land Without Bread] (1933)
#174 - Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Le (1972)
#178 - Ángel exterminador, El (1962)

Portrait of Luis Buñuel. Salvador Dalí. 1924. Oil on canvas.

His two collaborations with Salvador Dalí, L'age d'or and Un chien Andalou, make a certain amount of sense because of their incredible innovation and historical significance, though I personally wouldn't place both of them that high. But Las Hurdes and Los Olvidados? I was expecting the likes of Belle du jour (1967), which eventually showed up at #284, and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), which didn't show up at all. And I was disappointed to see that my personal favorite, The Exterminating Angel, way down at #178. It's among my own 100 Favorite Films.

There weren't many other surprises for me in the Top 200 Films. Perhaps seeing Visconti with four titles listed. Especially considering the fact that none of his films showed up in a single US/UK poll. Why the seemingly Anglo-American disregard for his work? I have to confess, I've never seen any of his films. (The Angel of Cinema suddenly appears in my darkened bedroom, whipping me with knotted strips of film for my cultural sins. "And I strike thee again for not seeing any Rossellini, Ozu or Murnau!" s/he cries. "How dare you write about the Greatest Films of All Time when you haven't even learned your basic Cinematic Catechism!" "Have mercy!" I cry, pleading that I've seen all 30 of Fred Astaire's musicals. "I love - just poorly and with bad aim!")

As for you Truffaut fans, I don't know what to tell you. Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player messenger. Only three films were mentioned overall: Les Quatre cents coups [The 400 Blows] (1959) at #25, Jules et Jim (1962) at #73, and La Nuit américaine [Day for Night] (1973) at #482. For whatever reason, at this point in time, (Wait, did I just quote Elton John?) Truffaut's reputation seems to be in a bit of a down cycle.He showed up in 15 of 30 polls, but only on five outside of the non-regional and US/UK lists. Even the French seem to have mixed feelings about his work these days. While Cahiers du cinema included The 400 Blows in its list of 100 films (#57 tied), the Cinémathèque Française didn't choose any of his works in its list of 20 Greatest Films, despite Truffaut's strong history with the institution. He did, however, wind up with two films in the overall Top 100 compilation of 30 polls, an impressive achievement.

And Truffaut certainly did better than Louis Malle, who, shockingly, didn't have a single film listed. Man, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud [Elevator to the Gallows] (1958) should've been mentioned by someone for the Miles Davis soundtrack alone. A wonderful film noir utilizing jazz extremely well. Not to mention My Dinner with Andre (1981) and Au revoir les enfants (1987). I'm surprised that none of these films were included in lists by Roger Ebert (100 films), Time magazine (100), Time Out (100) or the IMDB Classic Film Board (200). Not one Malle film out of 500 titles! I guess Time had to make space somewhere for Finding Nemo (2003).

François Truffaut

[NOTE: For the Greatest Films of All Time project, I used Ebert's book Great Movies (2002), which includes 100 unranked films. I also read but did not include Great Movies II (2005), because 200 unranked films would have had little numeric value and, I thought, dilute Ebert's voice, which I think is an important one. I recommend both books. His website also includes 200 Great Movies, but the list has at least one change from the print version - Babel (2006). Ebert does list Malle's My Dinner with Andre and Au revoir les enfants on his web site - they must have been in the 101-200 list from Great Movies II.]

Total Votes Received (30 polls - 580 films)

Here are the Top 20 directors by total votes received (how many times overall their films were mentioned):

1. (TIE)
Alfred Hitchcock - 48
Orson Welles – 48

3. Federico Fellini – 46

4. (TIE)
Jean Luc Godard – 44
Jean Renoir – 44

6. Charlie Chaplin – 40

7. Akira Kurosawa – 38

8. Carl Dreyer – 37

9. Ingmar Bergman – 36

10. Stanley Kubrick –35

11. Sergei M. Eisenstein – 34

12. Fritz Lang – 33

13. Luis Buñuel – 31

14. Francis Ford Coppola – 30

15. (TIE)
John Ford -29
D.W. Griffith – 29
F.W. Murnau – 29

18. Billy Wilder – 28

19. Kenji Mizoguchi – 26

20. Satyajit Ray – 24

Finally, Hitchcock winds up on top, though he has to share the honor with Welles.

Orson Welles filming The Lady from Shanghai (1947) on Errol Flynn's yacht

Has any major American artist been as rejected and neglected by his own country as Orson Welles? When people talk about great 20th Century American artists - T.S. Eliot, Hemingway, Plath, Toni Morrison, Pollock, Gershwin, Astaire, Dylan, Billie Holiday, Coltrane, Ellington, etc. - does Welles ever get mentioned? Cinema has been called the 20th-century art form. Orson Welles not only created the Greatest Film of All Time (and on his first try), but his work receives more votes in polls from around the world than any other director with the exception of Alfred Hitchcock. Yet we was exiled by Hollywood and still exists on the periphery of American film for most people. His treatment in and by the United States remains a great mystery.

Interesting that Godard and Renoir, the two titans of French cinema, wind up with an equal number of votes.

One director I haven't mentioned yet is Charlie Chaplin. I often think of him as a performer, but he ranked 5th (tied) in Total Films Mentioned, 2nd (tied) in Films in the Top 200, and 6th in Total Votes Received. In the end, only Godard and Hitchcock really did better in their numbers. Chaplin also did well across all regions, and appeared in 24 out of 30 polls. I notice he had a big goose egg, however, in the 1995 Filmoteca Vaticana list of Ten Greatest Films. One wonders if his political sympathies didn't go down well in the John Paul II era.

Buñuel drops down in this list, but still winds up ahead of figures like Ford and Wilder. I'm still amazed a bit by his excellent results in these polls.

Sadly, however, he's the only Spanish filmmaker who did well. Victor Erice had two films mentioned, El sol del membrillo (1992) and El espíritu de la colmena [Spirit of the Beehive] (1973), but neither one broke the Top 200, which, in the case of Spirit of the Beehive, is a travesty. And one of the biggest surprises for me was how poorly Pedro Almodóvar did in the polls. Only Hable con ella (2002) appeared anywhere - Time magazine and Cahiers du cinema - but it also couldn't break into the Top 200. One theory on Almodóvar's results: Many of these polls were done in 1995, when his reputation may have been at a low point. I was in Spain at that time, and he didn't seem nearly as respected as he had been back in the 1980s. It wasn't until Todo sobre mi madre won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in March 2000 that his reputation seemed to turn around. The Time magazine and Cahiers du cinema polls came out after that, for example.

Julio Medem (Los amantes del Círculo Polar), my favorite recent Spanish director, didn't have a single film chosen, nor did longtime director Carlos Saura (Cría cuervos), which was really a surprise. While Spanish cinema has never been on a par with that of France or Italy, I do think it was seriously under-represented in these polls. I don't know if that's a problem of film distribution, bad press, a weak industry, or what.

I hope you've enjoyed my mad exploration. Tell me some of your favorite directors and films!

Let the final credits roll. . .

The Greatest Films of All Time: 21-50

Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris (ranked #45) features the director of Metropolis (ranked #26), Fritz Lang, in the role of a famous film director named . . . Fritz Lang. And, yes, it also stars Brigitte Bardot.

"A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it."

Alfred Hitchcock

This is the second in a series of posts on my exploration of the world's Greatest Films of All Time. The initial post included an Introduction and Films 1-20. [The other posts in this series include Films 51-100, Films 101-200, and The Directors.]

Briefly, I researched and compiled 30 lists of Greatest Films from various sources around the globe, including critics such as Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum; popular magazines like Time and Time Out (UK); films journals such as Sight & Sound, Cahiers du cinema, Kinovedcheskie Zapiski (Russia); and a range of Film Archives from countries like China, India, Ecuador, Israel, Greece, and Finland.

The 30 polls produced a total of 580 films. When films weren't ranked in the polls, I assigned a numeric value depending on the total number of films included (eg. 100 films = 20 points). What follows are the movies that ranked 21-50 after all of the points from the 30 polls were tabulated. So, this list is not a ranking of films I personally think are the greatest of all time. It's simply a reflection of results from across 30 polls voted on by hundreds of other people.

My quest was twofold: To see which works were considered the masterpieces of cinema from a variety of international sources, and to see if and how the perception of great films and great directors varied from one region of the world to another.

Films 21-50

Les enfants du paradis [Children of Paradise] - It ranked #21 overall. Bob Dylan once called it his favorite film.

To be honest, I don't place much importance on the exact ranking of the films on this list. If I adjusted the numeric value I assigned to unranked polls, for example, the specific rankings might change quite a bit. Fritz Lang's Metropolis (#26) and Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (#27) were only separated by 1.5 points after 30 polls (606.5 and 605 points respectively.) The former was mentioned 13 times, the latter, 11 times. So it would be ridiculous to suggest that Lang's masterpiece is better than Bergman's.

On the other hand, I think the difference between these two films and, say, Renoir's Rules of the Game, which wound up with 1,350 points and was mentioned in 24 polls, is significant enough to be of interest. Or between these two films and the 200-plus titles that scored few points and were only mentioned once.

Also notable is that while Metropolis and Wild Strawberries fell around the same place in the pack, their support came from different regions of the world. Lang's futuristic silent film from 1927 showed up on four out of six US/UK lists, while Bergman's movie didn't show up at all. Instead, it was Bergman's The Seventh Seal which showed up in four out of six US/UK polls. Meanwhile, Wild Strawberries did better than Metropolis in Europe, a surprising fact to me, as the European polls included a number of film archives, which I thought would naturally favor Lang's film. And, of course, Lang, was from Vienna and both started and ended his career making films in Germany.

My surprise also originates in my American cinematic education. A discussion in the U.S of the masterpieces of cinema, in my experience, would certainly include Metropolis and Bergman's The Seventh Seal. I assumed, then, that the two films were regarded more or less the same way throughout the world, especially since they're both what we usually call "foreign" films. If they're "foreign," wouldn't "foreigners" regard them as highly as we do?

But Metropolis only showed up in one European poll - a film archive in Belgium - and The Seventh Seal didn't show up in any. It seems, then, that a European discussion of the film canon would be more likely to include Wild Strawberries than the other two films.

And Ingmar Bergman, who has been one of the cinematic titans in my film education, barely registers at all in the Asian films lists. Only one of his films showed up in their polls. (I'll discuss Directors more in a future post.) Metropolis, on the other hand, was ranked #13 overall in the Asian polls.

So, take the exact numbers with a big grain of salt. Think in broader terms. Which films get mentioned five times and which ones get mentioned 20? Which ones are mentioned more in the U.S. or Asia?

Here's the list, followed by some of my discoveries.

21. Les enfants du paradis [Children of Paradise] (1945) - Marcel Carné - 661.5 points - 11 mentions

22. Greed (1924) - Erich von Stroheim - 649.5 - 14

23. M (1931) - Fritz Lang - 646.5 - 12

24. L'avventura (1960) - Michelangelo Antonioni - 645 - 13

25. Les quatre cents coups [The 400 Blows] (1959) - François Truffaut - 617.5 - 13

26. Metropolis (1927) - Fritz Lang - 606.5 - 13

27. Smultronstället [Wild Strawberries] (1957) - Ingmar Bergman - 605 - 11

28. The Gold Rush (1925) Charlie Chaplin - 591 - 13

29. La dolce vita (1960) - Federico Fellini - 588.5 - 11

30. City Lights (1931) - Charlie Chaplin - 584 - 12

31. Casablanca (1942) Michael Curtiz - 582 - 13

32. The General (1927) - Buster Keaton - 548 - 9

33. La grande illusion (1937) - Jean Renoir - 531 - 10

34. The Godfather Part II (1974) - Francis Ford Coppola - 520 - 9

35. Psycho (1960) - Alfred Hitchcock - 515 - 10

36. Touch of Evil (1958) - Orson Welles - 495 - 8

37. Kabinett des Doktor Caligari [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] (1920) - Robert Wiene - 487 - 10

38. Gone with the Wind (1939) Victor Fleming - 480.5 - 11

39. Andrei Roublev (1969) Andrei Tarkovsky - 472.5 - 8

40. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) David Lean - 466.5 - 8

41. Night of the Hunter (1955) Charles Laughton - 447 - 7

42. Zerkalo [The Mirror] (1975) - Andrei Tarkovsky - 440.5 - 8

43. Some Like It Hot (1959) Billy Wilder - 437 - 9

44. Chelovek s kino-apparatom [Man with a Movie Camera] (1929) - Dziga Vertov - 433 - 7

45. Le Mépris [Contempt] (1963) Jean-Luc Godard - 426 - 8

46. Chinatown (1974) Roman Polanski - 425.5 - 8

47. Ordet [The Word] (1955) Carl Theodor Dreyer - 418.5 - 9

48. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Frank Capra - 418 - 8

49. Taxi Driver (1976) Martin Scorsese - 416 - 9

50. Det sjunde inseglet [The Seventh Seal] (1957) Ingmar Bergman - 415.5 - 9

One of the issues I wanted to explore in my quixotic quest was the influence of language in determining our concepts of Greatest Films. As an American, my relationship with cinema developed in an English-language environment, watching English-language films. I wouldn't encounter a film in another language until I was 16 years-old, when, out of boredom and curiosity, I slipped into the University of Texas Student Union Cinema to watch the last hour of one of the films in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy. (One of the most transformative experiences of my life.) I took film classes in English and was surrounded by a English-language film culture, discussing mostly English-language films in English. It wasn't until I moved to Spain in 1995 that my English-language film life would really undergo a change.

So, when I started on this exploration, I was curious to see how some of the classics of English-language cinema, the movies we love and hold dear in the U.S., would do in other parts of the world. Do people outside of our country revere Casablanca, Gone with the Wind and It's a Wonderful Life? They seem like such quintessentially American films.

Well, as it turned out, all three showed up in polls from other parts of the world. This may be due in part to the vast power and reach of Hollywood, especially in the 1940s, when American global cultural dominance established itself in the ashes of World War II. Take the case of France, for example. The birthplace of cinema, which once had a film industry rivaling that of Hollywood, had to turn to the United States for economic assistance in the aftermath of the war. According to Richard Brody, in his excellent new biography of Jean-Luc Godard, one of the stipulations of the Blum-Byrnes Accords, the debt relief package from the U.S., was that "for nine out of every thirteen weeks, each screen would show American movies." The directors of what we now call the French New Wave - Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Chabrol, Rivette - grew up in this environment and were so closely identified with Hollywood and its cinema when they first gained attention as young film critics, that the French originally deemed them the Hitchcocko-Hawksians, after Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks.

The silent films from early American cinema in the list - Greed, Gold Rush, City Lights, and The General - also did well across all regions. Charlie Chaplin has accurately been called the first Hollywood "star" to achieve worldwide fame. But, then, silent films obviously don't have to deal with the language barrier. Also, as I mentioned in the previous post, it seems that comedies often have difficulty moving from one culture to another, so it's interesting to see how well silent comedians Chaplin and Keaton did internationally.

As it turns out, though, there were several English-language films that ranked highly in the Anglo-American lists but didn't even show up in the rest of the world. Three such films in the 21-50 rankings were: Chinatown, which actually ranked #7 overall in US/UK polls; David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, and Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. (All three did show up on the "international" lists, which are five polls impossible to classify as being from a specific region.)

Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter, a French favorite.

Charles Laughton's disturbing Night of the Hunter, which wound up #13 overall in the US/UK polls, was ranked an astonishing #2 by the French journal Cahiers du cinema - but it wasn't mentioned in any other poll in the rest of the world. Almost the same thing occurred with Orson Welles' film noir Touch of Evil, which wound up #22 overall in the US/UK polls. It was also selected by Cahiers du cinema but didn't show up anywhere else.

All four French films in the 21-50 list - Les enfants du paradis (#21), Les quatre cents coups (#25), La grande illusion (#33), and Le Mépris (#45) - showed up in the French Cahiers du cinema poll, but they only appeared in one other European poll each. All four also showed up in at least one US/UK poll, with Truffaut's film (#25) appearing in five out of six. And, with the exception of La grande illusion, they all showed up in at least one Asian poll.

Both Russian polls chose Andrei Tarkovsky's 1966 masterpiece, Andrei Rublev, despite the fact that the film was withheld from release by the Soviet Union for a number of years. The Moscow Film Archive, however, did not list Tarkovsky's later film, Zerkalo [The Mirror]. Time Out (UK) did choose Zerkalo, but that was the only mention in US/UK polls for either of these Tarkvosky films, which, quite frankly, surprised me. Andrei Rublev did appear on all five international lists, including the IMDB Classic Film Board Top 200, where Tarkvosky is worshiped with great devotion. Meanwhile, Zerkalo was the only film by Tarkovsky to appear in any of the four Asian polls.

The other Russian film, Dziga Vertov's influential Man with a Movie Camera, showed up in the Kinovedcheskie Zapiski poll but not in the list from the Moscow Film Archive. It wasn't selected by any of the European or Asian polls, but it did do well in the US/UK and international polls and was included in the list from Venezuela.

Curiously, there were no Asian films ranked 21-50, after an impressive five titles in the 1-20 list.

Films ranked 21-50 that show up in my own list of Favorite 100 Films: Les enfants du paradis [Children of Paradise], La dolce vita, Casablanca, La grande illusion, The Godfather Part II, Le mépris and The Seventh Seal.

I'd love to hear about some of your own experiences with the films ranked 21-50. Any favorites make the list? Ones you absolutely hate? Are you surprised by any of the cultural differences?

Until the next reel. . . .

Films 51-100