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

Recent Screenings

The Illusionist (2006) - Written and directed by Neil Burger, starring Edward Norton, Jessica Biel and Paul Giamatti.

One of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had at the cinema in a long time. How heartening that the film industry can still produce an intelligent, well-written, well-crafted and thoroughly entertaining film once in a while. It’s not an indie film – this is a classic Hollywood-style production that's actually aimed at adults, the kind of film you would have seen on a regular basis in the 1930s, 40s, or 50s. Norton plays Eisenheim, the Magician, who starts from humble beginnings and winds up giving private performances for the Crown Prince of Austria. There's a childhood romance with a girl of the aristocracy that is forbidden by her parents. Of course, he encounters her again, in a most surprising way, once he becomes famous. Will their relationship have a chance now? There is a murder (or is there?) investigated by Chief Inspector Uhl, head of security for the Machiavellian Crown Prince. Uhl happens to be an amateur magician himself and is thoroughly fascinated by Eisenheim. How does he do what he does? Is the supernatural somehow involved? The concept of “mystery” works on several levels in this film. There's also political scheming and intrigue. It all starts to blend together in this wonderful movie, which is in itself something of a magical trick. Paul Giamatti gives a terrific, multi-layered performance as Inspector Uhl. Though I haven’t seen many other current films, it’s hard to imagine him not getting nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Norton and Biel are fine, though neither rises to the same high level. The performances by Eisenheim are truly beautiful and poetic, with the exception of some CGI-created ghosts that appear later in the film. (CGI is like electronic drums were in the 1980s. At one point, people are going to look back at films from this time period and go, “Ooh, what were we thinking?”) But the twists and turns and the various “illusions” are really the stars of this film. Music by Philip Glass and on-location filming in Prague add to the moody, intelligent atmosphere. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Le Mépris (Contempt) (1963) - Directed by Jean-Luc Godard, cinematography by Raoul Coutard, starring Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang.

If you ever wondered what Godard might have been like as a Hollywood director, Le Mépris offers a fascinating glimpse of the possibilities. Though JLG has said that he had a miserable experience making his only big-budget production, the film holds up as well his other landmark work from the early and mid 1960s. Along with Bande à part (1964), it’s probably his most accessible film. It’s also one of his most entertaining. What would he do with pop icon and mega-star Brigitte Bardot? Well, he takes her sex symbol status head on and explores its various ramifications with a post-modern sensibility. When moneymen Carlo Ponti and Georges de Beauregard demanded that their director show more of their big investment’s . . . uh . . . attributes, Godard complied with a touching and quietly subversive sequence in which he literally explores every part of Bardot’s body through colored filters reflecting the colors of the French flag. His great visual sense, which often gets neglected in discussions of his work, also manifests itself more openly in this film, via Raoul Coutard’s masterful use of Cinemascope. The movie is an absolute pleasure to watch and deserves to be seen on a big screen. Le Mépris also turns out to be one of the greatest films ever about filmmaking. Piccoli, a terrific but unheralded actor, plays a screenwriter hired to rewrite Homer’s Odyssey for an American producer (Jack Palance in a brutal performance.) Legendary director Fritz Lang plays, well, a legendary director named Fritz Lang, whose artistic version of Homer has seriously displeased the commercially-minded American producer. Bardot is Piccoli’s beautiful wife, and their relationship, and her growing contempt for her husband as he sells out, forms the centerpiece of the film. The score by Georges Delerue is piercingly beautiful. The initial credit sequence, with Godard speaking the credits as Raoul Coutard rolls closer and closer to the viewer with his huge Cinemascope camera, is one of my favorite opening sequences. It all adds up to one of Godard’s most fascinating and enduring works. The Criterion DVD also contains a second disc of interviews with Godard and Lang, and some interesting documentaries. Highly Recommended.

'I Know Where I'm Going!' (1945) - Written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, starring Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey.

I discovered the British filmmaking duo Powell & Pressburger via IMDB’s Classic Film Board, where several of their movies are included in an ongoing (and fairly interesting) Top 200 film list. To describe I Know Where I’m Going as a romantic comedy really doesn’t do it justice. First of all, it’s set in the stormy, moody Hebrides Islands of Scotland. It’s not a slapstick romantic comedy but something more natural, with touching performances by Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey. Hiller was also no ordinary actress but had been handpicked by George Bernard Shaw to star in his productions of Saint joan and Pygmalion. Her strong-willed Joan Webster “knows where she’s going,” only things don’t work out quite as planned. I hate to say too much about the plot because it unfolds so pleasantly and organically. I will say that La Reina liked this film very much, and we had to watch most of it again the next day. It’s just a marvel of good acting, good writing, good story and good filmmaking. A funny, very human movie. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Before Sunset (2004) – Directed by Richard Linklater, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy.

I enjoyed Before Sunrise (1995), Linklater’s first film with Hawke and Delphy playing these same characters (Jesse and Celine), but avoided this one for some reason. Maybe I wasn’t sure there should have been a second film. The idea of two young people meeting unexpectedly in Europe and having a brief but intense relationship seemed fairly realistic as it was portrayed, but those kind of fleeting relationships are exactly that – fleeting, and one doesn’t usually meet up with the same person ten years later. But I was pleasantly surprised when we finally watched Before Sunset. Written by Linklater, Hawke and Delphy, the dialogue-heavy screenplay works well and was nominated for an Oscar and three other film awards (losing each time to Sideways.) Basically, Jesse – a struggling writer - has finally published a novel that's based on his experience with Celine that was detailed in the first film. When he comes to Paris do a book-signing, she shows up, and they spend the afternoon walking around the city, discussing their brief relationship, what’s happened to them since then, and other topics of interest to two intelligent and cultured people who have the benefit of a screenplay to work from. My only real complaint about the film is that their conversation seems too natural and perfect. But they both imbue their characters with interesting touches of humanity, and Paris (the third actor in this film) looks stunning in her gown of late afternoon light. What saves the film from being overly precious is the heartfelt struggle of two people in their late 30s trying to see if their deeply romantic ideals have any place left in their increasingly mundane lives. It’s achingly and honestly nostalgic. And I could relate. Too well, perhaps. RECOMMENDED.

Pal Joey (1957) - Directed by George Sidney, music by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart, starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak.

Along with the Gershwins and Cole Porter, I love the music of Rodgers and Hart. If you don’t know or don’t remember how good they were, I suggest investing a little capital in Ella Fitzgerald’s Rodgers and Hart Songbook, Vol.1 & Vol.2, which were the first, and are still considered the best, of her songbooks of American composers. So when I saw the trailer for Pal Joey, I ignored Sinatra’s cheesy monologue and listened in amazement as one great Rodgers and Hart tune after another went by in 5-second blips. A few moments later, I was on the internet, reserving a copy of the DVD from my local library. As it turns out, the film version of this Broadway production holds up pretty well. Though sanitized for 1950s Hollywood, Pal Joey is still a slightly seedy, more adult musical. Sinatra may have found the perfect role for himself as the (not too) likable heel, Joey Evans. Rita Hayworth, whose career flagged in the early 50s, made something of a comeback with her strong performance as Vera Simpson, a former stripper turned wealthy socialite. Still beautiful and alluring, she seems older and wiser here. Kim Novak . . . well . . . the original New York Times review from 1957 called her “decorative” and left it at that. She’s about as exciting as brushing your teeth. (Actually, brushing your teeth is more energetic.) But there are some good secondary performances, especially Hank Henry as a nightclub owner, and a terrier who dunks bagels in a coffee cup, if you like that sort of thing. (See the New York Times article from March 21, 1957: “Terrier Is Signed to Film Contract. Snuffy Eats Way to Fame on Cream Cheese, Bagels, Lox for Role in ‘Pal Joey.’” Snuffy earned $500 a week for his role. And that’s in 1957 dollars.) The storyline of Pal Joey is good, not great, a little sexist, with some clever scenes now and then. The relationship between Joey and Vera is actually interesting and could have developed into something more, but the director pulls away right when it’s getting good. But this is ultimately about the music. As a vocalist, Frank Sinatra was in his prime in 1957, and with material by Rodgers and Hart, he delivers one great song after another. I never thought anyone could top Ella’s version of “The Lady Is a Tramp,” but Frank manages to be her equal on this tune. (See the clip here.) It ranks as one of the great vocal performances in a film musical. Another wonderful performance is Rita Hayworth (vocals by Jo Ann Greer) doing “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” (Alas, no clip.) Frank also sings “In a Small Hotel,” “If I Could Write a Book,” “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was,” and a few others. Rita (Greer) also does well with the fun burlesque song, “Zip.” All of the musical arrangements are by Nelson Riddle, who also worked on some of Ella's albums and knew how to swing. The only disappointment is that “My Funny Valentine” is given to the drip, Novak, instead of to Frank, who knew the song inside and out. RECOMMENDED, especially for Rodgers and Hart fans, and Sinatra fans.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) - Directed by Ken Hughes, screenplay by Roald Dahl (from an Ian Fleming novel), starring Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes and Lionel Jeffries.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang gets a bum rap, if you ask me. Slapped unjustly with the “kid’s movie” label, it gets stuck on a shelf where adults forget to look for it. At the public library, I literally had to go up into the Children’s Room to find the DVD. Yes, it is a great “kid’s movie,” but it’s also a highly imaginative and well-crafted film, period. Based on an Ian Fleming novel (yes, the James Bond guy), with a screenplay by Roald Dahl (yes, that Roald Dahl) and produced by Albert Broccoli, who produced the "Sean Connery" Bond films, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is really a magical comedy-adventure set to music. The delightful score is by Richard and Roger Sherman, who were nominated for nine Oscars for Mary Poppins, and won two, and were nominated for this film as well. I'll bet you money that you can't see this movie and not spend the next two days singing "our fine, four-fendered friend" while driving around in your car. Dick Van Dyke is wonderful as the eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts. I had forgotten what a complete performer Van Dyke really was, singing and dancing very well, and bringing great comic presence and timing to the role. Lionel Jeffries takes a fun turn as Grandpa Potts, and Sally Ann Howes, a Tony-award winning British stage actress, shines in the role of Truly Scrumptious, daughter of the candy factory owner. But the best performance of the film, and one that lingers longer than you want it to, may be that of Robert Helpmann, who plays the creepy and chilling “Child Catcher.” The film moves along at a good pace and, for dessert, offers the delirious architecture of Neuschwanstein Castle as one of its settings. Forget your preconceptions of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and watch it again. It’s worth it. RECOMMNEDED.