Showing posts with label best films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label best films. Show all posts

Saturday, February 12, 2011

World's Best Foreign Language Films

This is a subset of the non-English language films from all the other lists (my preferences, these are not from the Top Ranked on the Net survey we did - that post is listed seperately, as over 400 foreign language films made that list), with a few more worthy films added (* = new additions)

Updated: 5.13.11
The films listed together (ie, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring; Chunking Express/Fallen Angels) are parts of the same story, intended by the director to be one long film but were split up due to length. I think The Bicycle Thief is a great film, but it's very tough to recommend, as it's pretty depressing. Meanwhile, Under the Sun (a romance) is a true rarity: a non-depressing film from Sweden; so is My Life As a Dog (a comedy)
Posted by José Sinclair at 9:16 PM 6 comments
Labels: , , ,

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

My Favorite 100 Movies

[Updated 1.5.11]
Films in gold won Best Picture Oscars®
(* = recent addition)

The Top 20 (alpha order): 2001, All About Eve, Babe, The Best Years of Our Lives, City of God (Brazil), Cinema Paradiso (Italy), The Conformist (Italy), Dr. Strangelove, The Godfather II, Hannah and Her Sisters, Hero (China), Jean de Florette/Manon of the Spring (France), Lawrence of Arabia, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, My Fair Lady, Once Upon a Time in America, Parenthood, Requiem for a Dream, The Seven Samurai (Japan), The Shawshank Redemption, Wall-E

Top 100 in alphabetical order
  1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
  2. The 400 Blows * (France, bw)
  3. A Clockwork Orange
  4. A Room With a View
  5. A Wednesday (India) *
  6. After the Wedding (Denmark) *
  7. Aliens
  8. All About Eve (bw)
  9. Amadeus
  10. Annie Hall
  11. Apocalypse Now!
  12. As Good as It Gets
  13. Babel (Mexico)
  14. Babe
  15. Baraka * (Documentary)
  16. Battle of Algiers (France-Algiers, bw)
  17. The Best Years of Our Lives (bw)
  18. Big Fish
  19. Brazil
  20. The Bridge On the River Kwai
  21. Carmen (Spain, flamenco version)
  22. Casablanca (bw)
  23. Central Station * (Brazil)
  24. Chicago
  25. Chungking Express * (China/Hong Kong)
  26. Cinema Paradiso (Italy)
  27. City of God (Brazil)
  28. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  29. Conformist, The (Italy)
  30. Conversation, The
  31. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (China)
  32. Dances With Wolves
  33. Dangerous Liaisons
  34. Departures * (Japan)
  35. Devils on the Doorstep * (China)
  36. Diva (France)
  37. Doctor Strangelove (bw)
  38. Double Indemnity (bw)
  39. The Empire Strikes Back
  40. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  41. Field of Dreams
  42. Finding Neverland
  43. Finding Nemo
  44. Fitzcarraldo (Germany)
  45. Gandhi
  46. The Godfather
  47. The Godfather, Part II
  48. Good Bye, Lenin! * (Germany)
  49. Goodfellas
  50. Goodnight Mister Tom
  51. Graduate, The
  52. The Gray Fox
  53. Groundhog Day
  54. Hannah and Her Sisters
  55. Hero (China)
  56. Hoop Dreams (Documentary)
  57. Hope and Glory
  58. House of Games
  59. Jean de Florette/Manon of the Spring (France)
  60. Kolya (Czech Republic)
  61. L'america (Italy)
  62. The Last Emperor
  63. L'avventura (Italy, bw)
  64. Lawrence of Arabia
  65. La Femme Nikita (France)
  66. The Last Emperor
  67. The Last Picture Show (bw)
  68. The Lives of Others (Germany)
  69. Lord of the Rings Trilogy
  70. Manhattan (bw)
  71. The Maltese Falcon (bw)
  72. Memento
  73. Million Dollar Baby
  74. Minority Report
  75. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington *
  76. My Brilliant Career
  77. My Fair Lady
  78. The Namesake *
  79. Network
  80. Night of the Hunter (bw)
  81. Norma Rae
  82. Nowhere in Africa (Germany)
  83. October Sky
  84. On the Waterfront (bw)
  85. Once Upon a Time in America
  86. Open Range
  87. Out of the Past (bw)
  88. Parenthood
  89. The Philadelphia Story (bw)
  90. Platoon
  91. The Player
  92. Rabbit-Proof Fence *
  93. Raging Bull (bw)
  94. Raising Arizona
  95. Requiem for a Dream *
  96. The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2)
  97. Run Lola Run (Germany)
  98. Salaam Bombay! * (India)
  99. Schindler's List (bw)
  100. The Seven Samurai (Japan, bw)
  101. Shakespeare in Love
  102. Shane
  103. The Shawshank Redemption
  104. The Silence of the Lambs
  105. Singin' in the Rain
  106. Sunset Boulevard (bw)
  107. The Sweet Smell of Success (bw)
  108. To Kill a Mockingbird (bw)
  109. To Live (China)
  110. Together (China) *
  111. Traffic
  112. Turtles Can Fly (Iraq-Iran-France) *
  113. The Twilight Samurai (Japan)
  114. Umberto D * (Italy)
  115. V for Vendetta
  116. Walkabout
  117. Wall-E
  118. Whale Rider
  119. Winged Migration (Documentary)
  120. When Harry Met Sally
  121. Zelary (Czech Republic)
Ok, so I can't count - that's why I had them auto-numbered.. call this a "baker's 100", you get ten dozens. 'So many movies, so little time..' (to paraphrase Raising Arizona)

Thirty are foreign language films.. always watch the subtitled and not the 'dubbed into English' versions.. once you know the dialogue (usually once), you can watch them without subtitles and see just the film itself.. A few more titles are films in English from foreign directors, such as Once Upon a Time in America (Leone, Italy), The Last Emperor (Bertolucci, Italy), and The Namesake (Nair, India).

This list is always changing.
Newer: Departures, A Wednesday, After the Wedding, Whale Rider, Central Station, Umberto D, L'avventura, Wall-E, Good Bye Lenin, Baraka, Devils on the Doorstep, The Namesake, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Together, Turtles Can Fly

Just Removed: It's a Wonderful Life, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Citizen Kane, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ugetsu (Japan), Slumdog Millionaire, Duck Soup, Auntie Mame, Patton, Mephisto, A Christmas Story, Sybil, Gangs of New York, Back to the Future

Low on the List (next to go): The Last Picture Show, As Good As It Gets, Devils on the Doorstep, Norma Rae, Manhattan, Goodfellas TV Miniseries (that would be in the top 100): 1. Band of Brothers (10 hrs) 2. Planet Earth (12 hrs) 3. Into the West (12 hrs) 4. Brideshead Revisited (10 hrs) 5. Lonesome Dove (6 hrs) 6. The Prisoner (13 hrs, 17 episodes)
Posted by José Sinclair at 12:05 AM 7 comments
Labels: , , , ,

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Cannes Award Winning Films

The recent 2011 Cannes winners can be seen here at IMDB, a complete list

All Seventy-Eight Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Winners

1939 Union Pacific  U.S. Director Cecil B. DeMille

1946 Torment Sweden Director Alf Sjöberg
1946 Lost Weekend U.S. Director Billy Wilder
1946 The Red Earth Hungary Director Bodil Ipsen & Lau Jr. Lauritzen
1946 Lowly City India Director Chetan Anand
1946 Brief Encounter U.K. Director David Lean
1946 Maria Candelaria Mexico Director Emilio Fernandez
1946 The Turning Point U.S.S.R. Director Fridrikh Markovitch Ermler
1946 La Symphonie Pastorale France Director Jean Delannoy
1946 The Last Chance Switzerland Director Leopold Lintberg
1946 Men Without Wings France Director M. Cap
1946 Open City Italy Director Roberto Rossellini

1949 The Third Man U.K. Director Carol Reed

1951 Miss Julie Sweden Director Alf Sjöberg
1951 Miracle in Milan Italy Director Vittorio De Sica
1952 Othello U.S. Director Orson Welles
1952 Two Cents Worth of Hope Italy Director Renato Castellani
1953 The Wages of Fear France Director Henri-Georges Clouzot
1954 Gate of Hell Japan Director Teinosuke Kinugasa
1955 Marty U.S. Director Delbert Mann
1956 The Silent World Italy/France Director Jacques-Yves Cousteau & Louis Malle
1957 Friendly Persuasion U.S. Director William Wyler
1958 The Cranes are Flying U.S.S.R. Director Mikheil Kalatozishvili
1959 Black Orpheus Brazil Director Marcel Camus
1960 La Dolce Vita Italy Director Federico Fellini
1961 The Long Absence France/Italy Director Henri Colpi

1961 Viridiana Spain Director Luis Buñuel
1962 Keeper of Promises Brazil/Portugal Director Anselmo Duarte
1963 The Leopard Italy Director Luchino Visconti
1964 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg France Director Jacques Demy
1965 The Knack U.K. Director Richard Lester
1966 A Man and a Woman  France Director Claude Lelouch
1966 The Birds, the Bees, and the Italians  Italy/France Director Pietro Germi
1967 Blow-Up  U.K./Italy Director Michelangelo Antonioni
1969 If . . . .  U.K. Director Lindsay Anderson
1970 M*A*S*H  U.S. Director Robert Altman
1971 The Go-Between  U.K. Director Joseph Losey
1972 The Working Class Goes to Heaven  Italy Director Elio Petri
1972 The Mattei Affair  Italy Director Francesco Rosi
1973 The Mistake  U.K. Director Alan Bridges
1973 Scarecrow  U.S. Director Jerry Schatzberg
1974 The Conversation  U.S. Director Francis Ford Coppola
1975 Chronicle of the Years of Fire  Algeria Director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina
1976 Taxi Driver  U.S. Director Martin Scorsese
1977 Padre Padrone  Italy Director Paolo & Vittorio Taviani
1978 Tree of the Wooden Clogs  Italy/France Director Ermanno Olmi
1979 Apocalypse Now  U.S. Director Francis Ford Coppola
1979 The Tin Drum  Germany Director Volker Schlöndorff
1980 All That Jazz  U.S. Director Bob Fosse

1980 Kagemusha  Japan Director Akira Kurosawa
1981 The Man of Iron  Poland Director Andrzej Wajda
1982 Missing  U.S. Director Costa-Gavras
1982 Yol  Turkey Director Yilmaz Güney
1983 The Ballad of Nurayama  Japan Director Shohei Imamura
1984 Paris, Texas  France/W. Germany Director Wim Wenders
1985 When Father Was Away on Business  Yugoslavia Director Emir Kusturica
1986 The Mission  U.K. Director Roland Joffé
1987 Under the Sun of Satan  France Director Maurice Pialat
1988 Pelle the Conqueror  Denmark/Sweden Director Bille August
1989 Sex, Lies and Videotape  U.S. Director Steven Soderbergh
1990 Wild at Heart  U.S. Director David Lynch
1991 Barton Fink  U.S. Director Ethan & Joel Cohen
1992 The Best Intentions  Sweden Director Bille August
1993 Farewell My Concubine  China Director Chen Kaige
1993 The Piano  New Zealand Director Jane Campion
1994 Pulp Fiction  U.S. Director Quentin Tarantino
1995 Underground  Yugoslavia Director Emir Kusturica
1996 Secrets and Lies  U.K. Director Mike Leigh
1997 Taste of Cherry  Iran Director Abbas Kiarostami
1997 The Eel  Japan Director Shohei Imamura
1998 Eternity and a Day  Greece Director Theo Angelopoulos
1999 Rosetta  Belgium/France Director Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne
2000 Dancer in the Dark  Denmark Director Lars von Trier
2001 The Son's Room  Italy Director Nanni Moretti
2002 The Pianist  France/Germany/U.K. Director Roman Polanski
2003 Elephant  U.S. Director Gus Van Sant
2004 Fahrenheit 9/11  U.S. Director Michael Moore
2005 The ChildBelgium Director Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
2006 The Wind that Shakes the Barley  U.K. Director Ken Loach
2007 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days  Romania Director Christian Mungiu
2008 The Class  France Director Laurent Cantet
2009 The White Ribbon  Germany Director Michael Haneke
2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives  Thailand Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2011 The Tree of Life  U.S. Director Terrence Malick

Double Winners:
Alf Sjöberg: 1946, 1951
Francis Ford Coppola: 1974, 1979
Shohei Imamura: 1983, 1997
Emir Kusturica: 1985, 1995
Billie August: 1988, 1992
Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne: 1999, 2005


[Note: those from multiple countries were listed within each country]

U.S. Winners (19)
1939 Union Pacific (Cecil B. DeMille)
1946 Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder)
1952 Othello (Orson Welles)
1955 Marty (Delbert Mann)
1957 Friendly Persuasion (William Wyler)
1970 M*A*S*H (Robert Altman)
1973 Scarecrow (Jerry Schatzberg)
1974 The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola)
1976 Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese)
1979 Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)
1980 All That Jazz (Bob Fosse)
1982 Missing (Costa-Gavras)
1989 Sex, Lies and Videotape (Steven Soderbergh)
1990 Wild at Heart (David Lynch)
1991 Barton Fink (Ethan & Joel Cohen)
1994 Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
2003 Elephant (Gus Van Sant)
2004 Fahrenheit 9/11(Michael Moore)
2010 The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

U.K. Winners (9)
1946 Brief Encounter (David Lean)
1949 The Third Man (Carol Reed)
1965 The Knack (Richard Lester)
1967 Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni)
1969 If . . . . (Lindsay Anderson)
1971 The Go-Between (Joseph Losey)
1973 The Mistake (Alan Bridges)
1986 The Mission (Roland Joffé)
1996 Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh)
2002 The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
2006 The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach)

France (13)
1946 La Symphonie Pastorale (Jean Delannoy)
1946 Men Without Wings (M. Cap)
1953 The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
1956 The Silent World (Jacques-Yves Cousteau & Louis Malle)
1961 The Long Absence (Director Henri Colpi)
1964 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy)
1966 A Man and a Woman (Claude Lelouch)
1966 The Birds, the Bees, and the Italians (Pietro Germi)
1978 Tree of the Wooden Clogs (Ermanno Olmi)
1987 Under the Sun of Satan (Maurice Pialat)
1999 Rosetta (Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne)
2002 The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
2008 The Class (Laurent Cantet)


Italy (14)
1946 Open City (Roberto Rossellini)
1951 Miracle in Milan (Vittorio De Sica)
1952 Two Cents Worth of Hope (Renato Castellani)
1956 The Silent World (Jacques-Yves Cousteau & Louis Malle)
1960 La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini)
1961 The Long Absence (Henri Colpi)
1963 The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
1966 The Birds, the Bees, and the Italians (Pietro Germi)
1967 Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni)
1972 The Working Class Goes to Heaven (Elio Petri)
1972 The Mattei Affair (Francesco Rosi)
1977 Padre Padrone (Paolo & Vittorio Taviani)
1978 Tree of the Wooden Clogs (Ermanno Olmi)
2001 The Son's Room (Nanni Moretti)

- REST OF EUROPE -

GERMANY (4)
1979 The Tin Drum Director Volker Schlöndorff
1984 Paris, Texas Director Wim Wenders
2002 The Pianist Director Roman Polanski
2009 The White Ribbon Director Michael Haneke

SWEDEN (4)
1946 Torment  Director Alf Sjöberg
1951 Miss Julie  Director Alf Sjöberg
1988 Pelle the Conqueror Director Bille August
1992 The Best Intentions  Director Bille August

DENMARK
1988 Pelle the Conqueror  Director Bille August
2000 Dancer in the Dark  Director Lars von Trier

RUSSIA
1946 The Turning Point  Director Fridrikh Markovitch

Ermler
1958 The Cranes are Flying  Director Mikheil Kalatozishvili

HUNGARY
1946 The Red Earth   Director Bodil Ipsen & Lau Jr. Lauritzen

SWITZERLAND
1946 The Last Chance  Director Leopold Lintberg

SPAIN
1961 Viridiana  Director Luis Buñuel

PORTUGAL
1962 Keeper of Promises  Director Anselmo Duarte

BELGIUM
1999 Rosetta  Director Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne
2005 The Child   Director Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne

POLAND
1981 The Man of Iron   Director Andrzej Wajda

YUGOSLAVIA
1985 When Father Was Away on Business   Director Emir Kusturica
1995 Underground   Director Emir Kusturica (the nearly incessant brass band music in this film nearly drove me insane.. watch at your own risk!)

GREECE
1998 Eternity and a Day   Director Theo Angelopoulos

ROMANIA
2007 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days  Director Christian Mungiu


- ASIA -

TURKEY
1982 Yol   Director Yilmaz Güney

IRAN
1997 Taste of Cherry   Director Abbas Kiarostami

INDIA
1946 Lowly City Director Chetan Anand

JAPAN (4)
1954 Gate of Hell   Director Teinosuke Kinugasa
1980 Kagemusha   Director Akira Kurosawa
1983 The Ballad of Nurayama   Director Shohei Imamura
1997 The Eel   Director Shohei Imamura

CHINA
1993 Farewell My Concubine   Director Chen Kaige [only one Chinese film among the winners is a travesty! this is a good one, there are 25 more this good - viewers should also check out Zhang Yimou's epic multigeneration story of a family To Live (1994), a winner for best actor at Cannes]

THAILAND
2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul

- OTHER REGIONS -

BRAZIL (2)
1959 Black Orpheus  Director Marcel Camus
1962 Keeper of Promises  Director Anselmo Duarte

ALGERIA
1975 Chronicle of the Years of Fire  Director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina

NEW ZEALAND
1993 The Piano  Director Jane Campion

MEXICO
1946 Maria Candelaria Director Emilio Fernandez
Posted by José Sinclair at 3:22 PM 1 comments
Labels: , , , ,

Saturday, March 13, 2010

World's Best Romance Films


The world's best romance films, those without comedy Films in gold won Best Picture Oscars® (* = new additions)










  • A Room With a View (also in Romantic Comedy)
  • A Town Like Alice (mini-series)
  • A Very Long Engagement [photo rt]
  • The Age of Innocence
  • An Education * [photo top]
  • Atonement
  • Bad Timing, a Sexual Obsession
  • Brideshead Revisited (mini-series)
  • Casablanca
  • Children of a Lesser God
  • The Crying Game
  • Dangerous Liaisons
  • Days of Heaven
  • Doctor Zhivago
  • Five Easy Pieces
  • Hannah and Her Sisters (also Romantic Comedy)
  • Heat and Dust
  • House of Games
  • Il Postino
  • It's a Wonderful Life
  • My Brilliant Career
  • The Namesake *
  • Now, Voyager *
  • Out of Africa
  • The Road Home
  • Sense and Sensibility
  • Sex, Lies and Videotape
  • Shall We Dance? (Japan)
  • Slumdog Millionaire
  • Tess
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being
  • Under the Sun * (Sweden)
  • Wings of the Dove
  • Women in Love
  • Zelary * (Czech Republic) [photo rt]

I had to include the incomparable Brideshead Revisited here, even though it was a PBS / Masterpiece Theater for television, and about 8 hrs long (it also made Jeremy Irons a star). Laurence Olivier, who won an Emmy, was in both that and Love Among the Ruins. The Australian film Walkabout was the first DVD I ever ordered. Also Australian, A Town Like Alice was also a PBS mini-series, but only 4 hours.
Posted by José Sinclair at 5:45 PM 5 comments
Labels: , , , ,

Friday, March 12, 2010

Worlds Best Romantic Comedy Films

I decided to make this a genre since many romances were serious but just as many good ones are comedies, and because some comedies have no romance at all, plus it's a long list of really great films (updated: 3/12/10; * = new additions)
  • A Room With a View
  • Adam's Rib (bw)
  • Alice
  • Annie Hall (4 Oscars/5 noms.)
  • As Good As It Gets (2 Oscars/7 noms.)
  • Beautiful Girls
  • Big
  • Blast From the Past
  • Breaking Away
  • Cinema Paradiso
  • Clueless *
  • Defending Your Life
  • Enemies, A Love Story
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  • Goodbye, Lenin! (Germany)*
  • The Graduate
  • Groundhog Day
  • Hannah and Her Sisters (3 Oscars/7 noms.)
  • Heaven Can Wait
  • L.A. Story
  • Lost in Translation
  • Love Among the Ruins
  • Manhattan
  • Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • The Philadelphia Story (bw)
  • Shakespeare in Love (7 Oscars and 13 nominations, surprisingly, director John Madden did not win, losing to Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan)
  • Sideways
  • Tootsie
  • There's Something About Mary
  • Wall-E *
  • When Harry Met Sally
Runners-Up: 50 First Dates, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Bridget Jones' Diary, Emma, Finding Nemo, The Gay Divorcee (bw), A Life Less Ordinary, The Paper Chase. Many of these were nominated for Best Picture, which seldom goes to a comedy so the odds were stacked against them: A Room With a View, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Breaking Away, Bridget Jones's Diary, The Graduate, Hannah and Her Sisters, Lost in Translation, Sideways, Tootsie. Cinema Paradiso won over a dozen international awards, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Love Among the Ruins won several Emmys, and starred Katherine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier as two people who meet again in court decades after having a brief affair. Much Ado About Nothing, by Kenneth Branagh, is my favorite Shakespearean play put on film; the cast works even with Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves in it! Branagh believes you don't need a British accent for Shakespearean acting - what a striking concept. Woody Allen in his prime excelled at this type of film: Alice, Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan, The Purple Rose of Cairo. Since that era and his self-absorbed Bergman-esque period, my favorite of his was the recent Match Point, a crime-romance with Scarlet Johanssen.
Posted by José Sinclair at 5:31 PM 6 comments
Labels: , ,

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Venice Film Festival - Best Films

Golden Lion (Best Film) Winners at the Venice Film Festival (1946-2008)*: 1946 Best Film The Southerner Country: U.S. Director: Jean Renoir 1947 Best Film Siréna Country: Czechoslovakia 1948 Best Film Hamlet Country: U.K. Director: Laurence Olivier 1949 Best Film Manon Country: France Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot 1950 Best Film Let Justice Be Done Country: France Director: André Cayatte 1951 Best Film Rashômon Country: Japan Director: Akira Kurosawa 1952 Best Film Forbidden Games Country: France Director: René Clément 1954 Best Film Romeo and Juliet Country: Italy/U.K. Director: Renato Castellani 1955 Best Film Ordet Country: Denmark Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer 1957 Best Film Aparajito Country: India Director: Satyajit Ray 1958 Best Film Rikisha-Man Country: Japan Director: Hiroshi Inagaki 1959 Best Film The Great War Country: Italy Director: Mario Monicelli 1959 Best Film General della Rovere Country: Italy Director: Roberto Rossellini 1960 Best Film The Crossing of the Rhine Country: Italy Director: André Cayatte 1961 Best Film Last Year at Marienbad Country: France Director: Alain Resnais 1962 Best Film My Name Is Ivan Country: U.S.S.R. Director: Andrei Tarkovsky 1962 Best Film Family Diary Country: France/Italy Director: Valerio Zurlini 1963 Best Film Hands Over the City Country: Italy/France Director: Francesco Rosi 1964 Best Film The Red Desert Country: Italy Director: Michelangelo Antonioni 1965 Best Film Sandra of a Thousand Delights Country: Italy Director: Luchino Visconti 1966 Best Film The Battle of Algiers Country: Algeria Director: Gillo Pontecorvo 1967 Best Film Belle de Jour Country: France Director: Luis Buñuel 1968 Best Film Artist in the Circus Dome: Clueless Country: West Germany Director: Alexander Kluge 1980 Best Film Atlantic City Country: U.S. Director: Louis Malle 1980 Best Film Gloria Country: U.S. Director: John Cassavetes 1981 Best Film Marianne and Juliane Country: West Germany Director: Margarethe von Trotta 1982 Best Film The State of Things Country: West Germany Director: Wim Wenders 1983 Best Film First Name: Carmen Country: France Director: Jean-Luc Godard 1984 Best Film A Year of the Quiet Sun Country: Poland Director: Krzysztof Zanussi 1985 Best Film Vagabond Country: France Director: Agnès Varda 1986 Best Film The Green Ray (Summer) Country: France Director: Eric Rohmer 1987 Best Film Au Revoir les Enfants Country: France Director: Louis Malle 1988 Best Film Legend of the Holy Drinker Country: Italy Director: Ermanno Olmi 1989 Best Film City of Sadness Country: Taiwan Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou 1990 Best Film Rosencrantz Guildenstern Are Dead Country: U.K. Director: Tom Stoppard 1991 Best Film Close to Eden Country: France/U.S.S.R. Director: Nikita Mikhalkov 1992 Best Film The Story of Qiu Ju Country: China Director: Zhang Yimou 1993 Best Film Short Cuts Country: U.S. Director: Robert Altman 1993 Best Film Three Colors: Blue Country: France Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski 1994 Best Film Before the Rain Country: Macedonia Director: Milcho Manchevski 1994 Best Film Vive L'Amour Country: Taiwan Director: Ming-liang Tsai 1995 Best Film Cyclo Country: Vietnam Director: Tran Anh Hung 1996 Best Film Michael Collins Country: U.K. Director: Neil Jordan 1997 Best Film Fireworks Country: Japan Director: Takeshi Kitano 1998 Best Film The Way We Laughed Country: Italy Director: Gianni Amelio 1999 Best Film Not One Less Country: China Director: Yimou Zhang 2000 Best Film The Circle Country: Iran Director: Jafar Panahi 2001 Best Film Monsoon Wedding Country: India Director: Mira Nair 2002 Best Film The Magdalene Sisters Country: U.K. Director: Peter Mullan 2003 Best Film The Return Country: Russia Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev 2004 Best Film Vera Drake Country: U.K. Director: Mike Leigh 2005 Best Film Brokeback Mountain Country: U.S. Director: Ang Lee 2006 Best Film Still Life Country China Director: Jia Zhangke 2007 Best Film Lust, Passion Country Taiwan Director: Ang Lee 2008 Best Film The Wrestler Country U.S. Director: Darren Anorofsky *I think I started with 1946 because they were using the festival and its "Mussolini Award" for propaganda, so I responded to that with my own censorship and began with the post-Mussolini reign.
Posted by José Sinclair at 3:32 PM 1 comments
Labels: , , , ,

Monday, August 25, 2008

World's Best Crime Films

The worlds best crime and mystery films Films in gold won Best Picture Oscars®
  • Atlantic City
  • Chinatown
  • Chungking Express (China)
  • City of God (Brazil)
  • The Conversation
  • The Departed
  • Diva (France)
  • Double Indemnity (bw)
  • Gangs of New York
  • The Godfather
  • The Godfather, Pt. II
  • Goodfellas
  • The Grifters
  • Heavenly Creatures
  • House of Games
  • La Femme Nikita (France)
  • The Lives of Others (Germany)
  • The Maltese Falcon (bw)
  • Memento
  • Night of the Hunter (bw)
  • Once Upon a Time in America (long version)
  • Out of the Past (bw)
  • The Player
  • Pulp Fiction
  • Run, Lola, Run (Germany)
  • The Silence of the Lambs
  • Sleuth
  • Sunset Boulevard (bw)
  • Taxi Driver
  • Traffic
  • The Usual Suspects
  • Witness
Runners-Up: American History X, Body Heat, Fargo, Gorky Park, Klute, The Last Seduction, Little Caesar, Mystic River, The Spanish Prisoner, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Topkapi, The Yakuza Let's see, four entries from Scorsese and three from Coppola, also Sergio Leone - wonder why Italians make great crime movies? Night of the Hunter is the only film directed by actor Charles Laughton, with Robert Mitchum as a villainous preacher so bad that he had both "Love" and "Hate" tattooed on his fingers. The Conversation and The Lives of Others both cover the subject of electronic eavesdropping, and Lives won both a US and a British Academy Award for Foreign Language film. Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity is given credit for inventing film noir in 1944, and was the first of Wilder's b&w masterpieces, which include Lost Weekend, The Apartment, Some Like it Hot, The Fortune Cookie, One Two Three.
Posted by José Sinclair at 11:45 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , ,

Friday, May 9, 2008

World's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

The worlds best fantasy and science fiction films
Runners-Up: 2010, A Boy and His Dog, The Abyss, Outland, Silent Running, Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, The Wrath of Khan, Vanilla Sky, 2046 (Japan), Gulliver's Travels (mini-series)

The Prisoner was actor Patrick McGoohan's tv sequel to his first show, Secret Agent Man, and still has a large cult following due to its originality and statements about brainwashing, freedom, individuality, non-conformity, and government repression. It was planned as a 16-part complete series with an ending, first time ever on television, and British of course.

A Clockwork Orange was good, and the first and maybe only film rated X for violence (tame by today's standards), but the book was phenomenol, one of the best ever, Burgess wrote it to exorcise demons from a real life home invasion by a gang. The entire book was in Alex's vernacular, and later editions had a necessary glossary of the invented slang. "Hey, Billy Boy, come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles that is, ya eunuch jelly thou."

Big Fish is my favorite Tim Burton film, a beautiful fantasy of tall tales.

Where to you put Poltergeist, is it horror or science fiction? Same with Aliens.
Posted by José Sinclair at 3:38 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , ,

Saturday, May 3, 2008

World's Best Sports Films

Films in gold won Best Picture Oscars®
  • Breaking Away
  • Bull Durham
  • Chariots of Fire
  • Field of Dreams
  • Friday Night Lights
  • Glory Road
  • Golden Boy
  • The Great White Hope
  • Hoop Dreams (doc.)
  • Hoosiers
  • Million Dollar Baby
  • The Natural
  • Phar Lap
  • Pride of the Yankees
  • Raging Bull
  • Requiem for a Heavyweight
  • Seabiscuit (remake)
I guess I stretched a bit to make a sports list, as Bull Durham and Breaking Away belong in comedy, and Field of Dreams in fantasy & science fiction. Five boxing films and no Rocky... well, there are much better boxing films above. Raging Bull should have been Scorsese's first directing Oscar, and Goodfellas or Gangs of New York should have been his second, then his Oscar for The Departed could have gone to Alejandro Inarritu for Babel, which was filmed on three continents and in four languages. Friday Night Lights is probably the first great football film.
Posted by José Sinclair at 9:40 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , ,

Friday, February 8, 2008

Additions and Under Consideration

New additions:
  • A Boy Ten Feet Tall (childrens)
  • A Coal Miner's Daughter (musical/concert)
  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (bw, drama)
  • The Apartment (bw)
  • Baby Boom (comedy)
  • Bad Timing, a Sexual Obsession (romance)
  • Black Orpheus (musical/concert)
  • Bride and Prejudice (India, musical)
  • Broadcast News (drama)
  • Broken Trail (western, mini-series)
  • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (western)
  • Dead Can Dance: Toward the Within (musical/concert)
  • Dead Man Walking (drama)
  • Dominick and Eugene (drama)
  • Double Indemnity (bw, crime-7 Oscar noms)
  • Elmer Gantry (bw, drama)
  • The Emigrants (foreign lang, Sweden)
  • Empire Falls (drama, mini-series)
  • Fellini's Amarcord (foreign lang, Italy)
  • Five Easy Pieces (romance)
  • Frequency (Fantasy & SF)
  • The Grand Illusion (bw, foreign lang, France)
  • Gung Ho! (comedy)
  • Hud (bw, drama)
  • The Hustler (bw, drama)
  • The Last Picture Show (bw, drama)
  • Led Zeppelin (2 dvd, concert)
  • Little Foxes (bw, drama)
  • The Magnificent Ambersons (bw, drama)
  • McCabe and Mrs. Miller (western)
  • My Dog Skip (childrens)
  • My Life as a Dog (foreign lang, Sweden)
  • Peggy Sue Got Married (romantic comedy)
  • Peter Gabriel: Secret World Live (musical/concert)
  • The Player (crime & mystery)
  • The Producers (comedy, orig. vrsn)
  • Pulp Fiction (crime)
  • The Seventh Seal (foreign lang, Sweden)
  • Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (childrens)
  • Stars Fell on Henrietta
  • The Sweet Hereafter (drama)
  • The Thin Man (series, comedy)
  • The Truth About Cats and Dogs (romantic comedy)
  • The Wings of the Dove (romance)
We have a number of films under consideration, both suggestions from the blog (thanks to Beth G, master fan of BW movies) and a personal list I need to rewatch:
  • The 39 Steps (bw)
  • D.O.A. (bw, original)
  • Dolores Claiborne
  • The Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie (France)
  • Jules and Jim (bw, France)
  • The Lady Vanishes (bw)
  • The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Narnia 1)
  • Magic Town (bw)
  • Orlando
  • Panic in the Streets (bw)
  • Proof
  • Runaway Jury
  • Separate Tables (bw)
  • Shadow of a Doubt (bw)
  • Shoot the Piano Player (France, bw)
  • Walk the Line
Posted by José Sinclair at 11:04 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)