If people are looking for films to watch at home during the holidays and cannot bear another sighting of Meryl Streep, Matt Damon, Nicole Kidman, Leonardo DiCaprio . . .
A few years ago, to commemorate the 100th anniverary of cinema, the Vatican compiled a list of 45 great films, dividing them into categories of “Religion,” “Values,” and “Art.” (The list is here.) A few selections will make Chronicle readers smile, such as Ben-Hur, Chariots of Fire, and It’s a Wonderful Life. It chooses Little Women from 1933, not realizing, I guess, that the chracterization “Lovingly sentimental” is a fault, not a virtue.
But it also contains Wild Strawberries, 8 1/2, Intolerance, Citizen Kane, The Bicycle Thief, and other film-school standards. It calls Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc “the most convincing portrayal of spirituality on celluloid.” It summarizes La Strada perfectly in one sentence: “Italian director Federico Fellini’s somber picture of lost souls on the backroads of life has its emotional center in Masina’s Chaplinesque performance as the poor waif struggling to keep her spirit from being crushed by the brute she serves.”
A lot of it crosses with the most distinguished list of greatest films, Sight & Sound’s once-a-decade list compiled by critics and directors.
Here are the top 10:
1952
- 1. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
- 2. City Lights (Chaplin)
- 2. The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
- 4. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
- 5. Intolerance (Griffith)
- 5. Louisiana Story (Flaherty)
- 7. Greed (von Stroheim)
- 7. Le Jour se lève (Carné)
- 7. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
- 10. Brief Encounter (Lean)
- 10. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
1962
1972
- 1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
- 2. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
- 3. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
- 4. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
- 5. L’avventura (Antonioni)
- 5. Persona (Bergman)
- 7. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
- 8. The General (Keaton)
- 8. The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
- 10. Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
- 10. Wild Strawberries (Bergman)
1982
- 1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
- 2. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
- 3. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
- 3. Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly, Donen)
- 5. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
- 6. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
- 7. L’avventura (Antonioni)
- 7. The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
- 7. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
- 10. The General (Keaton)
- 10. The Searchers (Ford)
1992
- 1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
- 2. La Regle du Jeu (Renoir)
- 3. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
- 4. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
- 5. The Searchers (Ford)
- 6. L’Atalante (Vigo)
- 6. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
- 6. Pather Panchali (Ray)
- 6. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
- 10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
And the last one, in 2002
Critics’ Top Ten Poll
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
Dazzlingly inventive, technically breathtaking, Citizen Kane reinvented the way stories could be told in the cinema, and set a standard generations of film makers have since aspired to. An absorbing account of a newspaper tycoon’s rise to power, Orson Welles’ debut film feels as fresh as tomorrow’s headlines. And he was only 26 when he made it. Who voted for Citizen Kane?
2. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
A gripping detective story or a delirious investigation into desire, grief and jealousy? Hitchcock had a genius for transforming genre pieces into vehicles for his own dark obsessions, and this 1958 masterpiece shows the director at his mesmerising best. And for James Stewart fans, it also boasts the star’s most compelling performance. Who voted for Vertigo?
3. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
Tragedy and comedy effortlessly combine in Renoir’s country house ensemble drama. A group of aristocrats gather for some rural relaxation, a shooting party is arranged, downstairs the servants bicker about a new employee, while all the time husbands, wives, mistresses and lovers sweetly deceive one another and swap declarations of love like name cards at a dinner party. Who voted for La Règle du jeu?
4. The Godfather and The Godfather part II (Coppola)
Few films have portrayed the US immigrant experience quite so vividly as Coppola’s Godfather films, or exposed the contradictions of the American Dream quite so ruthlessly. And what a cast, formidable talent firing all cylinders: Brando, De Niro, Pacino, Keaton, Duvall, Caan. Now that’s an offer you can’t refuse. Who voted for The Godfather?
5. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
A poignant story of family relations and loss, Ozu’s subtle mood piece portrays the trip an elderly couple make to Tokyo to visit their grown-up children. The shooting style is elegantly minimal and formally reticent, and the film’s devastating emotional impact is drawn as much from what is unsaid and unshown as from what is revealed. Who voted for Tokyo Story?
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
One of the most ambitious Hollywood movies ever made, 2001 crams into its two-hour plus running time a story that spans the prehistoric age to the beginning of the third millennium, and features some of the most hypnotically beautiful special effects work ever committed to film. After seeing this, you can never listen to Strauss’ Blue Danube without thinking space crafts waltzing against starry backdrops. Who voted for 2001: A Space Odyssey?
7. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
Eisenstein’s recreation of a mutiny by sailors of the battleship Potemkin in 1905 works as daring formal experiment — which pushed the expressive potential of film editing to its limit — and rousing propaganda for the masses. The Odessa Steps sequence remains one of the most memorable set-pieces in cinema. Who voted for Battleship Potemkin?
7. Sunrise (Murnau)
Having left his native Germany for the U.S., F.W. Murnau had all the resources of a major Hollywood studio at his disposal for this, his American debut. What he produced was a visually stunning film romance that ranks as one of the last hurrahs of the silent period. Who voted for Sunrise?
9. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
Wonderfully freefloating, gleefully confusing reality and fantasy, 8 1/2 provides a ringside seat into the ever active imaginative life of its director protagonist Guido, played by Fellini’s on-screen alter-ego Marcello Mastroianni. The definitive film about film making — as much about the agonies of the creative process as the ecstasies — it’s no wonder the movie is so popular with directors. Who voted for 8 1/2?
Singin’ In the Rain (Kelly, Donen)
Impossible to watch without a smile on your face, this affectionate tribute to the glory days of Hollywood in the 1920s is pleasure distilled into 102 minutes. With Gene Kelly dance sequences that take your breath away and a great score by Brown and Freed, this is the film musical at its best. Who voted for Singin’ in the Rain?
