Lists by their nature reflect upon their creator. What my list more starkly reveals about me is that even though I consider myself to be an agnostic, I am nevertheless drawn to themes of religion and spirituality. Cinema, for me, is at its most potent when it reveals humanity’s ability to love, experience and inflict pain, compassion, longing, and sorrow. Humanity in film is usually shown in exaggerated states of idealism or demoralization, and rarely says much about the human existence. Genuine humanity, with its brilliance and its horror, shown in the midst of a mysterious life is what I personally long for, and treasure the films where I find it.
Even though I personally don't believe the Christian notion of being strangers on this Earth, I suppose I respond to a sense of mysticism and spirituality because of the transcendant nature of them - the concept that we are strangers of our current state of existence, always longing for higher ground. That in itself provides the mystery in life, the constant pursuit of the unknown. The search shown on film doesn't arrive to an answer, but the quest itself is the purpose. The paradox is that we learn through searching for the answer, not by discovering it. I've had the pleasure of learning a great deal from these films, and many others: empathy, compassion, life's brilliance and mystery, and quite simply the pleasure and beauty that can come from the medium of the moving image.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
There simply has never and will never be a film like it; mystifying and haunting, Kubrick’s sci-fi transcends the logical and explores how sound, image and tone can expose the future.
2. The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Not simply a war film, The Thin Red Line is a film about life, and its paradoxes: sanity and insanity, sorrowful necessity, single and collective experience, beauty and horror.
3. The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (Kenji Mizogichi, 1939)
Kenji Mizoguchi was a humanist and a feminist in his work, and he never capture his familiar themes in such a mystifying, tragic and compelling way.
4. L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Antonioni’s film deservedly won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival for creating a new cinematic language, one that has been imitated since its release, but never equaled.
5. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
Almost uniformly to be considered the greatest film ever made, and not without reason; Citizen Kane simply elevated the artform of cinema to a level that has yet to be topped.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Chris Kent
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!
2 - Eric Olsen
Whoa, I am seriously slacking per this list - do they allow movies to be madein foreign tongues? Odd
3 - Al Barger
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.
4 - John Lars Ericson
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.
5 - Rodney Welch
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.
6 - John Lars Ericson
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.
7 - Mark Saleski
wow. it's very cool how with movies, very much like music, there can exist such polar opposite opinions.
i loved American Beauty.
8 - Distorted Angel
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.
9 - Rodney Welch
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.
10 - Eric Olsen
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)
11 - Rodney Welch
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.
12 - Chris Kent
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......
13 - Rodney Welch
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.
14 - John Lars Ericson
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.
15 - Nicole
No Seventh Seal? How disappointing...
16 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
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.)
17 - Chris Kent
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.
18 - John Lars Ericson
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.
19 - Chris Kent
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.....;)
20 - Shark
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
21 - Rodney Welch
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
22 - Rodney Welch
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.
23 - Chris Kent
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.
24 - Chris Kent
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
25 - John Lars Ericson
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.