There is just way, way, way, way, way too much champagne and shitty-ass caviar on this list. I would like to think myself a movie buff, but I have not even heard of half of these dull, Euro-Bozo films.

Why not call this list:

The 6 Most Obvious and 19 Most Obscure Greatest Films of All Time?

I don't get the whole Terrence Malick brown-nosing many cinema masturbators seem to be obsessed with. Thin Red Line was excellent but severely flawed. Days of Heaven ranks as one of the most overrated films of all time. Now Badlands, I might accept. Hard to find a flaw in that haunting film classic. I think the whole shaman/loner/recluse/JD Salinger wanna-be thing has fooled a few critics. Separate indulgence from TALENT, and the truth will then set you free. Amen!

I'm a big fan of Murnau and the great legend surrounding "what could have been." However, to even daydream that Sunrise could remotely touch the greatness of Nosferatu is about as retro-idiot of a stance as I've ever seen.

The mention of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut is brave, as I too am a big fan of that dark and thought-provoking nightmare. But it does not rank above Dr. Strangelove, 2001 (I saw it in your list - fine choice), Paths of Glory or A Clockwork Orange.

You might also consider changing the name of this list to:

The 2 Greatest and 23 Second or Third Best Films of Many Overrated Directors

I admire and champion great directors. You have left off far too many, and included a few whose work is fiercely overrated. I feel like I'm back in NY listening to a bunch of bulimic friends who haven't had a good dish of meat and potatoes in years......Someone please pass me the gravy!

Whoa, I am seriously slacking per this list - do they allow movies to be madein foreign tongues? Odd

Special thumbs up here for the underappreciated Eyes Wide Shut. Also with the Kubrik theme, you could also have included AI, perhaps even a better film.

I'm intriguied how a film can be "dull", if you haven't even heard of it - let alone seen it.

Plus, I'd take Faust, Sunrise, The Last Laugh and Tabu over Nosferatu.

Eyes Wide Shut was a disaster, and -- along with American Beauty -- easily one of the worst films of the 1990s. The Schnitzler story was out of date and Kubrick was completely out of his element. If it had any other director's name on it, people would not hesitate to see it as the turkey that it is.

As to the rest of Jon's list, I care for eight of them: L'Avventura, Citizen Kane, Rules of the Game, Dead Man, Celine and Julie Go Boating, L'Atalante, Sunrise and Cleo from 5 to 7. I find Tarkovsky a chore to sit through and I've sat stone-faced through the Tati films I've watched. My idea of a great comedy is Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story -- sadly unavailable on DVD.

Ironically, I find Sturges to be somewhat tiresome.

Kubrick's work has often been polarizing when it was first released. Eyes Wide Shut has continually gained admirerers as time progresses, and I believe it will be considered among his best with time. That's the case with many great works of art: a level of dislike initially, and then time reveals its greatness.

wow. it's very cool how with movies, very much like music, there can exist such polar opposite opinions.

i loved American Beauty.

wow. it's very cool how with movies, very much like music, there can exist such polar opposite opinions.

Cool indeed. I'm the only person I know who finds 2001 boring. It's not that I don't like Kubrick -- I love Dr. Strangelove and I re-watched Paths of Glory not too long ago and was pleased to see that it held up well.

Al, I think AI would have been a great film if Spielberg hadn't screwed up the ending. He had a good ending, he just didn't know enough to end the film there.

Jon, We agree on little. Anyway, it's equally true that, as time progresses, bad films don't improve, and people see through the hype of films that looked good or even great in their own time. I think when people look at Kubrick in perspective, Eyes Wide Shut will be seen as the least of his films, sort of the way Satyricon is with Fellini, or Torn Curtain with Hitchcock -- the work of someone past their prime.

I love American Beauty also, although I can see how people find it nihilistic and are turned off by that. But Rodney also likes Wonkette (smile)

I didn't find it nihilistic; I thought it was stupid -- as well as prettified, smug in its attitude and lame in its reach. At the end it adopted a kind of mass-market morality. It never got its hands dirty.

I went through a divorce almost exactly during the time American Beauty was vomited onto our nation's theaters. Annette Bening's character was the splitting image of my ex, down to screaming at the top of her lungs in vacant homes. It was an eerie account of my own journey through the lost suburbs of America. I related to it, and it struck a deep emotional chord within me. The older I get, the more I admire the film.

I am more of a fan of Sturges' Sullivan's Travels and even The Lady Eve. Sullivan's Travels will always be one of my top-10 films of all time.

I am not going to get into any argument with a man so steeped in the Murnau mystique. I am just thrilled that in the year 2004, two men are arguing the merits of his work. By the way - Nosferatu is No. 12 on my list of the greatest films of all time.

I think Kurosawa should be mentioned, Ford, Chaplin, Hitchcock. I think the Ridley Scott Blade Runner inclusion is brave, but I have always been a bigger fan of Alien, and to piss off a few people, I might even mention The Duellists instead. You mention Godard, you must mention Breathless, at the very fucking least.

As for AI - a grand failure, but never-the-less a failure. Not deserving to be mentioned on a top-25 list, or even a top-100 list for that matter.

I still find this list insanely frustrating, as far too much has been left out. Too much goatee stroking here......

I've had, in various forums, so, so, so many discussions on five films I've never much liked: Eyes Wide Shut, American Beauty, Happiness, The Thin Red Line and Do the Right Thing. I probably shouldn't even bring any of them up, because I find myself regurgitating old defenses and just boring myself blind in the process.

Anyway, Chris, I love Sullivan's Travels and The Lady Eve as well, but I love Sturges the most when his films lean more toward inspired, free-wheeling nuttiness. Of course, the more you watch them you notice just how structured that nuttiness is -- it takes a lot of work to make something look easy. Anyway, it's in this regard that I love Palm Beach and Miracle of Morgan's Creek, which I think we've discussed. I like Christmas in July too.

Jon finds Sturges "tiresome" -- and yet, he includes two Tarkovsky films on his list. This suggests to me a bit of an impasse in the way we approach movies, as we can't even agree on the meaning of "tiresome." To me, watching Tarkovsky -- outside of his early My Name is Ivan -- is so boring it's almost painful. I'm not entirely against boring cinema, mind you, as great art is often very boring; that doesn't mean it's not illuminating or memorable.

I made a list of the 25-or-so (it changes) films that I am most thrilled with, as simple as that. No goatee stroking here.

No Seventh Seal? How disappointing...

hmm. interesting list, for sure. I don't neccesarily rate any of Mallick's films among my top-25, but it's easy to see why some would. My own list would feature plenty of woody allen (Manhattan and Love And Death top) and also Pasolini. The Decameron is a beautiful film.

Nice inclusion of Faust there, also. It never fails to amaze me how so many critics ignore it. Cannibal Holocaust would be on my list, too. And i've got a copy of Dead Man sitting by the screen just now. Hopefully it's as good as you indicate. (shameful that i haven't seen it till now, i know.)

Now Duke, I see Cannibal Holocaust on any top-25 list and I'm turning it into a paper airplane. Frankly, there's not too many traditional horror films (or even sci-fi) that deserve to be on a "Greatest of All Time" list.

My list, as mentioned earlier, would include Nosferatu (I've decided to rent Sunrise this weekend as I've not seen it since college), and I would be tempted to put Bride of Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera (1925) and perhaps even The Haunting (1963). But I would be hard-pressed to find another horror film to place on my all-time list.

The Seventh Seal is a great choice and would be on my top-10 list. Bergman is like Kubrick or Kurosawa, everyone has a fave film of theirs, and there are so many to choose from. But I look at this list, and Bergman is nowhere to be found!!! And I will not argue the merits of Jarmusch (though Stranger Than Paradise is his best film), because Dead Man is a funky choice which is kind of cool.

I think intentionally putting select directors on a list would be a prime example of "goatee stroking". I set out to simply put my 25 favorite films - regardless of director, release date, country, etc.

Bergman's Persona and Autumn Sonata (underrated!) would be on my personal top one hundered. I think The Seventh Seal is his worst film, from what I've seen.

I am glad my "goatee-stroking" comment has made such an impression, as it is the second time you have mentioned it. I thought it was funny too.

I never ONCE said I was intentionally putting directors on any list. However, if I was making an appropriate top-25 list, and one I could be proud of and would not cause fits of nervous "goatee stroking," I would include listings from my favorite directors - Hitchcock, Chaplin, Bergman, Peckinpah, Ford, Kurosawa, among others......Perhaps throw Herzog and Sturges in for good measure.

I cannot for a moment grasp if you truly know what a great film is going by this breaking-wind of a list (and additionally noted by your comments on Sturges and Bergman). You have about six films on this list worthy of mention, and the rest are just pretentious throwaways.......If I took a film course taught by you, I do believe I would never watch a film again.....;)

A few asides:

I would probably throw out a majority of the top ten.

Pointing out 'great' obscure and/or foreign films ain't a bad thing to do in an era when the average moviegoer thinks "Star Wars" is an ancient classic.

2001 and Eyes Wide Shut are Kubrick's worst, imo.

And IMO, A.I. is probably one of the worst pieces of shit ever to be captured on celluloid. The good news: it's unintentionally hilarious.

Mallick, oy -- is so friggin' overrated -- and I'm sick of seeing that flacid Days of Heaven on a list of "bests".

Nothing wrong with stroking a goatee, as long as it's clean and it's your own.

Best Bergman - Wild Strawberries - a film that means a hell of a lot more as one ages. (the oft-mentioned/revered "The Seventh Seal" is one of his lesser films, imo)

re: Kurosawa - almost everything he did could go on any top 25 list -- could probably fill it up without much effort. And for anyone not familiar with my favorite among Kurosawa's many masterpieces, check out the profound (and pretty darn applicable to today's world) "Red Beard".

(...Then maybe we could discuss universal health care...?)

One of the greatest films that NEVER gets mentioned on any of these lists is "The Cranes Are Flying", an astonishing anti-war film made in Russia in 1957 or 58. Run, don't walk, to pick up a copy.

Also: a surrealistic masterpiece that no one ever heard of: "The Saragossa Manuscript" -- a story within a story within a story within a story within a story within...

Well, you get the idea.

Shark's Final word on the three greatest films ever made:

1) Cool Hand Luke
2) Pollyanna
3) The Crowd (1928)

Gotta run! The goatee needs stroking!

xoxo
S

25 films -- 25 Directors!

Maybe I've posted this; probably I have. In fact I'm sure of it. But anyway, here's my own bid for the Goatee-Stroking Award, my own Top 25. I assembled this list some years ago and, over time, adjusted it (usually the last five or so) -- but not much. There's always the chance with posting a list of anything that you come across as pretentious, to which I can only state that I really, really, really love these movies and that they've all burned their way into my heart, mind or memory. The only one I'm not real sure about is Number 24 -- I want to represent Bergman, but it's just hard to pick. I tend to like his films collectively and don't really have favorites.

1, Citizen Kane (1941) -- Orson Welles
2. The Rules of the Game (1939) -- Jean Renoir
3. Vertigo (1958) -- Alfred Hitchcock
4. Mikey and Nicky (1976) -- Elaine May
5. Godfather, The (1972) -- Francis Ford Coppola
6. Viridiana (1961) -- Luis Bunuel
7. L'Avventura (1960) -- Jean Vigo
8. Nashville (1975) -- Robert Altman
9. Blue Velvet (1986) -- David Lynch
10. I Vitelloni (1953) -- Federico Fellini
11. The Crying Game (1992) -- Neil Jordan
12. La Belle Noiseuse (1991) -- Jacques Rivette
13. Casablanca (1942) -- Michael Curtiz
14. Life Is Sweet (1990) -- Mike Leigh
15. Seven Beauties (1976) -- Lina Wertmuller
16. The Children of Paradise (1945) -- Marcel Carne
17. Manhattan (1979) -- Woody Allen
18. La Dolce Vita (1960) -- Federico Fellini
19. The Searchers (1956) -- John Ford
20. The Apartment (1960) -- Billy Wilder
21. In the Course of Time/Kings of the Road (1976) -- Wim Wenders
22. Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) -- Preston Sturges
23, Mean Streets (1975) -- Martin Scorsese
24. The Hour of the Wolf (1968) -- Ingmar Bergman
25. Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) -- Rainer Werner Fassbinder

YIKES! Just noticed I said L'Avventura was directed by Jean Vigo. Of course, it was directed by Michaelangelo Antonioni; Jean Vigo directed L'Atalante.

Why anyone would stroke their goatee after naming a film highlighted by a scene in which a man gorges on boiled eggs is beyond me.

Cool Hand Luke is fun mass entertainment, but as to whether or not it truly broke any ground in filmmaking or struck any emotional truths, I'm inclined to say "Nope!" Newman is a good looking chap and we would all like to be his friend, but the only good film he made during this era was Hud, and even that was flawed thanks to Brandon fucking De Wilde.

Well, since Rodney put in his list, here is mine:

1. City Lights
2. Sunset Boulevard
3. Citizen Kane
4. The Wild Bunch
5. Sullivan's Travels
6. Intolerance
7. 2001 - A Space Odyssey
8. Ikiru
9. The Seventh Seal
10. Vertigo
11. The Searchers
12. Nosferatu (Murnau)
13. It's a Wonderful Life
14. Last Tango in Paris
15. Dr. Strangelove
16. Breathless (Godard)
17. Metropolis
18. Taxi Driver
19. Lawrence of Arabia
20. Aguirre: The Wrath of God
21. The Bride of Frankenstein
22. Night of the Hunter (Laughton)
23. Ran
24. Peeping Tom
25. Manhattan

In all honesty, Chris - the feeling's mutual.

I wouldn't jump in excitement with the prospect of a film class viewing the likes of twenty-five films taken from a mixture of Ebert's Great Movies list, and that one the AFI crafted a few years back.

Plus, I'm still confused how the rest of 19 films on my list can be pretentious throwaways if you admittedly haven't even heard - let alone seen - half of them.

But, that's art for you: subjective.

Yikes, that came out bitchier than I meant it to be.

I think it's because I'm angered that you, my cinematic arch nemesis, got me addicted to that damn "goatee stroking".

Chris, re. your assessment of Cool Hand Luke -- with all due respect, you're wrong; it's one of the most profound films ever made.

gees, i'm not even sure i can come up with 25....

not in order:

1.Diva
2.2001
3.Babette's Feast
4.Mystery Train
5.Repo Man
6.Do The Right Thing
7.It Happened One Night
8.Citizen Kane
9.Casablanca
10.8 1/2

uh....i'm stuck...

Mark, I really love Diva too, like a door to a magical world I didn't know existed, stylized but totaly in keeping with the heightened sensitivities of high art. Exciting, lyrical, touching, and it was the first time I understood the appeal of opera.

exactly, eric. it made me go out and buy a copy of Catalani's "La Wally".

plus, i love the fact that the guy covets his Nagra (stereo equipment porn!)

11. Pulp Fiction
12. A Clockwork Orange
13. Pi
14. Ricky and Pete
15. A Boy And His Dog
16. Fandango
17. Ruby In Paradise
18. Paris, Texas
19. Apocalypse Now
20. Breakfast Club
21. Jean de Florette/Manon of Spring
22. The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
23. Cinema Paradiso
24. The Bicycle Thief
25. Annie Hall (or Manhattan..or...)

sorry for all the goatee stroking

Don't know much about Roger Ebert, and I vaguely recall the AFI list. I owe a far deeper debt of gratitude to Danny Peary and his "Cult Movie" books (there are three). The first two I read in high school and the third while in college. Excellent film criticism and to this day I thumb through them, though they are quite the worse for wear.

I have a friend in NY who likes to blow foreign films up my ass all the time, and with few exceptions, I find most of them to be pretentious pieces of shit. Like your list, mine constantly fluctuates, and I add and take away on a whim. This weekend I rented Sunrise, and my list held firm.....

Cult Movies

Fascinating books for those interested.....

Chris -- Interesting you should say that foreign films "with few exceptions [are] pretentious pieces of shit." What I always run into is the opposite; so many people try to show off their taste by saying they "like foreign films," which seems to mean that any movie made outside of America is automatically good. You go the other route; you think they're automatically crappy.

i tend to like movies that have lots of character development & talking...things not usually found in american films (except those in my list up there)

This was a really impressive discussion, one I'm not really able to participate in since I'm not familiar with most of the movies you people list. You should write more often about movies, John Lars (or other non-cinematic topics, for that matter).

AI was an abomination and Spielberg is the only director alive who could screw up Kubrick's brilliance with the typical manipulative, heavy-handed, pull-at-your-heartstrings, parental abandonment plea for sentimental identification on the part of the view. I'm not saying it's not emotionally affective, it's just something Kubrick would have hated. I also don't think that Spielberg is capable of a truly dystopian, technophobic vision the way Kubrick was -- Spielberg has always been the geek who wants to make everyone happy through the wonders of special effects and technology. But then I don't know any director I can think of who should have taken the Kubrick project. Any ideas?

I do think Bergman's best was Seventh Seal, although it's not goatee-stroking cool to pick his generally most acclaimed film as your favorite.

I think "goatee-stroking" is funny too. It sounds like something I'd come up with, so I'm going to steal it.

That is all.

Hi Lars et al-
Thanks for the great discussion, am just startinig my world movie exploration phase. I live in India and untill recently we wouldnt even get decent VCD's let alone DVD's of great world movies which are apparently not even screened in the USA. It took me a long time to realize Independence day was a crap movie but pls dont blame, its the hollywood and its marketing thats the nculprit here...anyways...i thought i shd add a few movies here which i think shd be there in any top 25 list(including yours!): Can i also ask you how come none of the 90's and the new millenium movies appear on yr list? (yeah, i know you dont fill in the decades first and then the movies understandably but is it because you start cronologically and end up filling up most of the slots byt the time you reach the eighties and then you are left with no space for the last two decades?)

1] Cinema Paradiso: Truly marvelous story telling, wonderful wonderful characterization (uncle/father figure alberto's character was the greatest celluloid achievement as far as characterization goes...), searingly incisive dialogues spoken casually among characters but they are more like a discourse to humanity(agreed its cheezy at times but still...). I feel this movie needs to be squeezed in somehow, can you do something about it?

2] Shawsang Redemption: Well, may be its just that i saw it only recently, but i thought the story telling again was masterful yet very controlled and i think Tim Robbinson gave a performance of a life time(i hope he won something for this?). Finaly, i have never seen a prison movie taking up philosophy and hope in good measure as its BG theme.

3] Spy Game, purely for being the only one movie of its genre oozing that kind of class and stylized movie making style. May be ill hate it another 5 years down the line but right now it goes into my charts

4] Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panjali" of the appoo trilogy: Well, since this seem to be primarily americans readers here, i suggest you watch it lest i comment about anything on this movie. (John, i guess you've got the wrong Satyajit movie up there in yr list)

As part of the trend, my shocking addition would be for the french movie piano teacher for its sheer ground breaking use of shocking sexuality as an art(??) form!

ill add more as i continue to recollect more...

--Bhooshan

Overlooked...

Kurosawa - Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Rashomon, sanjuro, the hidden fortress, Kagemusha.

Bergman - Seventh Seal, Virgin spring

Wilder - Sunset Boulevard

Scorsese - Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas

FF Copolla - Apocalypse Now, Godfather trilogy

Lynch - Elephant man

Lean - Lawrence of Arabia

Curtiz - Casablanca

Kubrick - Dr Strangelove

Vittorio de Sica - The Bicycle thieves

Chaplin - City Lights, Modern times

City of God - It is a modern day classic.

It was sad that you did not include The bicycle thieves in your list or anything by Kurosawa, David Lean and Chaplin. I think Chaplin is largely overlooked as a director due to the slapstick nature of his movies. But Modern times is such a brilliant satire of industrialisation, no movie has come close to it...maybe noone has since tried to mock big industry. I havent watched most of the movies you have mentioned, so I will not comment on many of them.

But here are the movies from your list I would defenitely remove:

Blade Runner - agreed it is a breakthrough movie and a rather good modern noir, but it does not hold a candle to Sunset Blvd or maltese falcon, or even Chinatown for that matter.

Thin Red line - Apocalypse now is a much better war movie, and shows how a man is affected by war. Platoon also is, imo, a better movie than Thin red line.

Eyes Wide Shut - ....if Kubrick was alive I would be his groupie. But this was a sophomoric effort by the master. Give me Dr Strangelove over this anyday. Lolita is a much deeper study of sexuality and the human psyche for me.