Top Ranked Films of Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang
25th in points with 21,131 with only 4 titles in the top 1000

Lang was an early master of German expressionism, along with Murnau, Pabst, and von Sternberg, which dominated his early films. Later he came to Hollywood and made more western styled films that weren't as artistic, most were standard film noir and crime films, though better than the average fare.

These are all the films of Lang’s that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls.

1. Metropolis (1927), silent #7
2. M. (1931) #16
3. Big Heat, The (1953) #563
4. Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler (1922) silent, #640

However, 17 titles in all made polls, only Woody Allen had this many if we include all films that made any polls. Hitchcock had 15 overall. [If we included all these additional titles in the director point totals, Lang would be ranked 14th with 29,968 points]

These were just out of the top 1000:
5. Tiger of Eschnapur, The (1959) #1015
6. Woman in the Window, The (1944) #1069
7. Moonfleet (1955) #1197
8. You Only Live Once (1937) #1239
9. Indian Tomb, The (1959) #1258
10. While the City Sleeps (1956) #1386
11. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) #1462
12. Nibelungen, Die (1924) silent, #1474
13. Destiny (1921) silent, #1515
14. Fury (1936) #1631
15. Spione (1928) #1873
16. Scarlet Street (1945) #1914
17. Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933) #2092

Metropolis [photo below] is an all-time classic of science fiction. The plot isn’t much but the visuals are now legendary. Even more intense, however, is the suspense film M., in which Peter Lorre plays a child murderer. Lang's early works are his more classic.

Production photo from Metropolis

See the full list of top ranked 100 directors here: Top Ranked 100 Directors, 2011 Edition

Top Ranked Films from Germany

[2011 update]
© William L. Sinclair
This continues our top ranked films on all film polls, 2011 edition, by individual countries. The first list here is just Germany, and we merged West Germany into these; 29 total in the top 1000, down from 35. The second list is just the multi-country productions that included Germany, with 27 in the top 1000, down from 38. The last list is my own personal favorite 30 German films, and I stuck with German directors only.


Germany and West Germany

1. Metropolis (1927) Lang, Fritz #7 [production still above]
2. M (1931) Lang, Fritz #16
3. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972) Herzog, Werner #83
4. Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) Murnau, F.W. #112
5. Lives of Others, The (2006) von Donnersmarck, Florian Henckel #134
6. Blue Angel, The (1930) von Sternberg, Josef #196
7. Das Boot (1981) Peterson, Wolfgang #233
8. Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner #279
9. Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (1919) Wiene, Robert #292
10. Downfall (2004) Hirschbiegel, Oliver #328
11. Vampyr (1932) Dreyer, Carl #349
12. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1971) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner #409
13. Fitzcarraldo (1982) Herzog, Werner #425
14. Marriage of Maria Braun, The (1979) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner #481
15. Last Laugh (1924) Murnau, F.W. #508
16. White Ribbon, The (2009) Haneke, Michael #522
17. Grizzly Man (2005) Herzog, Werner #541
18. Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, The (1974) Herzog, Werner #555
19. Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, The (1972) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner #602
20. Triumph of the Will (1935) Riefenstahl, Leni #615
21. Faust (1926) Murnau, F.W. #619
22. Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler (1922) Lang, Fritz #641
23. Kings of the Road (1976) Wenders, Wim #643
24. Olympia (1938) Riefenstahl, Leni #701
25. Alice in the Cities (1974) Wenders, Wim #704
26. In a Year with 13 Moons (1978) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner #710
27. Tin Drum, The (1979) Schlöndorff, Volker #903
28. Fox and His Friends (1975) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner #958
29. Run Lola Run (1998) Tykwer, Tom #1001
30. Tiger of Eschnapur, The (1959) Lang, Fritz #1016

Lang, Murnau, Herzog - these are not only deservedly at the top of this list but are also among my favorite directors. Each seemed to make his films into works of art.

Fitzcarraldo remains a favorite 'obsession on film', a grand adventure as crazy as its director. Les Blank's documentary Burden of Dreams chronicles the making of the film and Herzog's own obsession. I was also riveted by The Lives of Others, and Das Boot.

Even today, the filmmaking artistry of Leni Reifenstahl is undeniable; she undoubtably gets moved down the list because it's all Third Reich propaganda, but those interested in creative camera work and direction should definitely see these, at least Olympia, which documented the 1936 Olympics.

Multi-Country with Germany
1. Conformist, The (1970) Bertolucci, Bernardo #45 Italy-France-Germany
2. Pianist, The (2002) Polanski, Roman #142 France-Gy-UK-Poland
3. City of God (2002) Meirelles, Fernando #121 Brazil-Germany-France
4. Wings of Desire (1987) Wenders, Wim #165 Germany-France
5. Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The (1964) Demy, Jacques #187 France-Germany
6. Fight Club (1999) Fincher, David #201 US-Germany
7. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003) Ki-duk Kim #351 South Korea-Gy
8. Dead Man (1995) Jarmusch, Jim #424 US-Germany
9. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) Tarr, Bela & Hranitzky, Agnes #504 Hung-It-Gy-France
10. 1900 (1976) Bertolucci, Bernardo #505 France-Germany-Italy
11. V for Vendetta (2005) McTeigue, James #507 US-UK-Germany
12. Hidden (Caché, 2005) Haneke, Michael #534 Germany-Fr-Aus-Ity
13. Sátántangó (1994) Tarr, Béla #542 Hungary-Germany-Switzerland
14. Germany, Year Zero (1947) Rossellini, Roberto #580 Italy-West Germany
15. Underground (1995) Kusturica, Emir #633 France-Germany-Hungary
16. Edge of Heaven, The (2007) Akin, Fatih #783 Germany-Turkey-Italy
17. Film Unfinished, A (2010) Hersonski, Yael #805 Germany-Israel
18. Fateless (2005) Koltai, Lajos #844 Hungary-GY
19. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) Herzog, Werner #880 Can-US-Fr-UK-Gy
20. Dogville (2003) von Trier, Lars #897 Den-Swe-UK-Fr-Gy
21. Antonio das Mortes (1969) Rocha, Glauber #904 Brazil-Fr-Gy
22. Our Daily Bread (2005) Geyrhalter, Nikolaus #905 Germany-Austria
23. Sweet Sixteen (2002) Loach, Ken #912 UK-Gy-Spain
24. Dancer in the Dark (2000) von Trier, Lars #917 Sp-Arg-Gy-UK-Neth-Fr-Swe
25. Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition, The (2000) Butler, George #935 Sw-UK-Gy-US
26. Nostalgia for the Light (2010) Guzmán, Patricio #936 France-Gy-Chile
27. Paragraph 175 (2000) Epstein, Rob & Friedman, Jeffrey #986 UK-US-Germany

The Conformist remains one of my favorite films from any era. For me, Bertolucci's finest, and the influence on Coppola is obvious as this seems to have inspired the Godfather films. However, this is almost a total Italian film so I've placed it in my list of Italian favorites and removed it from here.


City of God is a modern masterpiece, a literal war in the streets of what's considered the worst slums in our hemisphere; this is my favorite Brazilian film, but it's not really a German film. Same with Fight Club, which I liked a lot.

My Favorites
* = unranked - 10 titles added, Doc = documentary
 [AA]  = academy award for best foreign language film 
click links for our review

1. Run Lola Run (1998) Tykwer, Tom #1001 [Our Review]
2. Lives of Others, The (2006) von Donnersmarck, Florian Henckel #134 [AA] [photo above]
3. Good Bye Lenin (2003) Becker, Wolfgang *
4. Das Boot (1981) Peterson, Wolfgang #233
5. Fitzcarraldo (1982) Herzog, Werner #425
6. Triumph of the Will (1935) Riefenstahl, Leni #615 (Doc.)
7. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) Tykwer, Tom *
8. Downfall (2004) Hirschbiegel, Oliver #328
9. Metropolis (1927) Lang, Fritz #7
10. Fateless (2005) Koltai, Lajos #844 Hungary-GY
11. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972) Herzog, Werner #83
12. Nowhere in Africa (2002) Link, Caroline * [AA]
13. M (1931) Lang, Fritz #16
14. Olympia (1938) Riefenstahl, Leni #701 (Doc.)
15. Beyond Silence (1996) Link, Caroline *
16. The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003) Byambasuren Davaa & Luigi Falorni * Germany-Mongolia (Doc.)
17. Wings of Desire (1987) Wenders, Wim #165 Germany-France
18. White Ribbon, The (2009) Haneke, Michael #522
19. The Harmonists (1999) Vilsmaier, Joseph *
20. The Tunnel (2001) Richter, Roland Suso *
21. Gloomy Sunday (1999) Schübel, Rolf *
22. Blue Angel, The (1930) von Sternberg, Josef #196
23. Last Laugh (1924) Murnau, F.W. #508
24. Touch the Sound (2004) Riedelsheimer, Thomas * (Doc.)
25. Marriage of Maria Braun, The (1979) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner #481
26. Cobra Verde (1987) Herzog, Werner *
27. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1971) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner #409
28. Tin Drum, The (1979) Schlöndorff, Volker #903
29. In a Year with 13 Moons (1978) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner #710
30. Hidden (Caché, 2005) Haneke, Michael #534 Germany-Fr-Aus-Ity

Tom Tykwer is so creative, he's my favorite modern German director, while Herzog, Lang, and Murnau are the all-time masters here. Run, Lola, Run starts with a phone call, and Lola's boyfriend has lost some money - if she can't get to him in 20 minutes, he's a dead dude.. so the race is on, and never lets up..

The World Film Awards - Silent Films

WORLD FILM AWARDS 
"The Silent Era"

Images courtesy of Fanpix.net
© William L. Sinclair

I've decided to create some film awards of my own that will give a retrospective look at cinema's greatest achievements without the limitations of most current awards, such as only one film winner per year, only films released last year, or only films from a particular country or region. Even the Academy Awards® seem to only be open to English language films, as no foreign language film has ever won best picture, hence the need for both the U.S. and Britain to create a special foreign language category.

My awards will go to great films no matter the country, language, or year created, and at times I may give more than one for particular year, such as 1927 (see below), when I thought three classic films worthy of mention, in the last year before the advent of sound pictures. If I don't limit the number, I can come back later and add titles as so many films are made worldwide that it may be years later before one is even made available to the public as new titles are added to digital media annually from years past.

I will likely keep documentaries separate and only award those for special films, not necessarily annually. Same with tv miniseries, as they are basically one long film, usually based on one book, such as Band of Brothers, the Masterpiece Theatre versions of classic novels, and historical stories like John Adams and Longitude, about the inventor of the method of calculating longitude at sea, saving many shipwrecks.

They say "rules are made to be broken" - in my case, I don't have any rules for myself.. ("Freedom, baby.. yeah!" - Austin Powers)

The top 1000 ranking is from our compilation of all film polls I could find, representing over 1500 in all, literally millions of voters, since popular polls such at Internet Movie Database are included in my tabulations. The complete list can be seen in this post

These first 15 for silent films were divided up as follows: Germany (5), U.S. (6), France (2), Russia (2)

[Year].. Film (rank in the top 1000) - Director

[1915] The Birth of a Nation (#68) - D.W. Griffith
Probably the birth of the movie epic, a little hard to take today because it's a story of the Ku Klux Klan and shows racial violence. I know it's just U.S. history, but it doesn't make it easier to bear. Still, excellent filmmaking considering the date. This film introduced Lilian Gish to the world who would act in films for the next seven decades. Perhaps her most memorable: Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter, as she protects two children from a menacing ex-convict played by Robert Mitchum, after money their father stole.

[1916] Intolerance (#64) - D.W. Griffith
Griffith attempted to show, in various stories, how intolerance shaped important eras in the history of mankind. This had some massive sets and effects like many Griffith films.

[1919] The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (#322) - Robert Wiene - Germany
An eerie suspense film, precursor to modern horror films, known for its fantasy elements and surrealistic settings; one man is controlled by a hypnotist into committing murder.

[1921] The Kid (#228) - Charles Chaplin
Chaplin's first feature film, successful blend of humor and pathos that made him a worldwide star, and also one of costar Jackie Coogan.

[1922] Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (#48) - F.W. Murnau - Germany
One of the first freaky vampire films from one of the first great directors of the school known as German Expressionism, this character is truly horrifying.

[1923] Safety Last (#748) – Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
A Harold Lloyd film, the one in which he caused much gasping while climbing a skyscraper and hanging off the hands of a clock, among other incredibly funny stunts. He later revealed he used a hidden scaffold just underneath so he wouldn't fall far if he slipped. Lloyd added his trademark clear glasses and straw hat to create a nerdy 'everyman' who would always get into unimaginable predicaments.

[1924] Greed (#79) - Erich von Stroheim - Germany
Originally a nine-hour film (what was von Stroheim thinking? what audience could sit through that?), the studio cut it down to a reasonable two-hour length, which has now been restored using some stills found back to around four hours. A precursor to the modern mini-series.

[1925] The Battleship Potemkin - Sergei Eisenstein - Russia
Eisenstein was a master at re-creating historical events in Russia, sometimes killing more people during filming than the original events. He wanted to show the root causes of the Bolshevist Revolution in this film and October. Our review at 1000 Dvds to See

[1926] Faust (#585) - F.W. Murnau - Germany
The classic tale told by the master of German Expressionism.

[1926] Metropolis (#23) - Fritz Lang - Germany
Some unforgettable science fiction images show man trapped in a heartless, mechanized world of daily drudgery with no relief, while some underground rebels are working toward a worker's revolt. Above is a production still with an actress inside the famous robot suit, which was an artificial humanoid that would replace workers. From a novel by Thea von Harbou, and fairly prescient as she saw dehumanization resulting from a mechanized industrial world . Our review at 1000 Dvds to See

[1927] General, The (#28) - Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman
For my money, Keaton was much funnier and more inventive and lively than Chaplin, and was the king of silent comedies. Actors Diane and Michael Keaton are descendents of Buster's family. In his later days, he was sadly relegated to some embarassing roles, such as running around constantly in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, while less worthy comedians got the choice parts.

[1927] Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (#38) -  F.W. Murnau
This beautiful tale of a romantic triangle won three Oscars® the first year they were presented, most of any film, including the only one ever given for "artistic film", another for its cinematography, and the 3rd for Janet Gaynor as actress (though they listed all her roles that year). Apparently the film was shot to resemble 18th century paintings, because that's how it looks. This was Murnau's first film in the U.S. Our review at 1000 Dvds to See

[1927] Napoléon (#230) - Abel Gance - France
Gance's massive six-hour film was the first part of an intended six part film on the life of the emperor, but he never got the financing to complete the project. This innovative film features a triptych sequence with three projections side-by-side that pre-date extreme widescreen films. If the 36-hr work had been completed, that would have been longer than any modern mini-series, and the epic of all epics. Our Review at 1000 dvds to see

[1928] The Passion of Joan of Arc #51 - Carl Theodor Dreyer  - France
Maria Falconetti's performance as the teenaged warrior who said "God told
me to kill British soldiers" is the most intense of the silent era. It is said that she never recovered emotionally, and made no other films. It's written that after battles, Joan would be drenched up to her shoulders in blood after beheading as many as 15 soldiers with a sword. Burned as a heretic, she was later sainted by the church.

[1929] The Man With a Movie Camera (#78) - Dziga Vertov - Russia
Probably the most innovative silent film you will see. It has multiple exposures, superimposed images, thousands of rapid edits, innocent nudity, and a galloping horse sequence even better than those in 59's Ben-Hur. Also called "Living Russia", it attempts to document a day in the life of urban Russia, using the Black Sea resort city of Odessa. Based on its date and creative techniques, perhaps the greatest documentary ever.
Along with Sunrise, this is my favorite silent film. Our review at 1000 Dvds to See

Lloyd's humor wasn't always visual

Note the sign to the right, an

early use of the double entendre

Note: I suppose, after looking at my award logo, I could call it the Silver Camera

Director Film Counts in the Critics 1000

Directors with the most films in the critics top 1000.

Top Ten:
1. John Ford (18)
2. Fritz Lang (16)
3. Luis Bunuel (15)
4. Alfred Hitchcock (14)
5-6. Ingmar Bergman (13), Jean-Luc Godard (13)
7. Federico Fellini (12)
8-10. Howard Hawks (11), Stanley Kubrick (11), Akira Kurosawa (11)

10 each: Chaplin, Mizoguchi, J.Renoir
9 each: Scorsese, Visconti, Powell (9 total, 7 w Pressburger)
8 each: Allen, Altman, Bresson, Huston, Rossellini, von Sternberg, Welles, Wilder
7 each: Bertolucci, Cassavetes, Kieslowski, Lubitsch, Lynch, Ophuls, Ozu, Peckinpah, Rohmer, Powell & Pressburger, Spielberg, Tarkovsky, Trauffaut

Most films in the top 200:  Buñuel (7), Ford (6), Kubrick (6)
5 each: Bergman, Hitchcock
4 each: Chaplin, Coppola, Dreyer, Godard, Hawks, Kurosawa, Powell & Pressburger, Scorsese, Welles, Wilder
3 each: Antonioni, Bresson, Eisenstein, Murnau, S. Ray, Renoir, Rossellini, Spielberg, Preston Sturges, Tarkovsky, Visconti

Alphabetical List, four or more films
Total films in the top 1000, those 86 with 4+, represents 561 films.
Followed by total in the top 200, then the [highest ranked film]

Allen (8) – 2 [#113: Manhattan]
Almodovar (4) [#635: All About My Mother]
Altman (8) – 2 [#67: Nashville]
Antonioni (6) – 3 [#38: L’avventura]
Bergman (13) – 5 [#40: Persona]
Bertolucci (7) – 1 [#65: The Conformist, photo right]
Bresson (8) – 3 [#61: Au hasard Balthazar]
Buñuel (15) – 7 [#68: Viridiana]
Capra (6) – 2 [#45: It’s a Wonderful Life]
Cassavetes (7) – 1 [#156: A Woman Under the Influence]
Chaplin (10) – 4 [#23: City Lights]
Clair (4) [#275: Le Million]
Cocteau, Jean (4) [#196: La Belle et la bête]
Coen Bros (5) [#288: Fargo]
Coppola (5) – 4 [#6: The Godfather]
Cukor (5) – 1 [#142: The Philadelphia Story]
De Sica (4) – 2 [#14: The Bicycle Thief]
Demy, Jacques (4) [#248: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg]
Donen (4) w Kelly (2:] – 1 [#11: Singin’ in the Rain]
Dreyer (5) – 4 [#17: The Passion of Joan d’Arc]
Eisenstein (6) – 3 [#8: Battleship Potemkin]
Fassbinder (6) – 1 [#186: Ali-Fear Grips the Soul]
Fellini (12) – 5 [#5: 8 ½]
Flaherty, Rob't (4) [#210: Nanook of the North]
Ford (18) – 6 [#7: The Searchers]
Forman (4) – 1 [#131: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, photo rt]
Godard (13) – 4 [#33: Breathless]
Griffith (5) – 3 [#51: Intolerance]
Hawks (11) – 4 [#63: Rio Bravo]
Herzog (5) – 1 [#91: Aguirre-The Wrath of God]
Hitchcock (14) – 5 [#2: Vertigo]
Hou Hsiao-Hsien (4) [#287: The Time to Live and the Time to Die]
Huston, J (8) – 2 [#111: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre]
Kazan (6) – 1 [#104: On the Waterfront]
Keaton (7) – 2 [#30: The General]
Kiarostami (6) – 1 [#191: Close-Up]
Kieslowski (7) – 1 [#132: Dekalog]
Kubrick (11) – 6 [#4: 2001-A Space Odyssey]
Kurosawa (11) – 4 [#9: Seven Samurai, photo right]
Lang, F (16) – 2 [#53: M]
Lean (6) – 2 [#13: Lawrence of Arabia]
Lubitsch (7) – 2 [#71: To Be or Not To Be]
Lumet (4) [#283: Network]
Lynch (7) – 1 [#107: Blue Velvet]
Mankiewicz (4) – 1 [#72: All About Eve]
Mann, A (4) [#589: Man of the West]
McCarey (4) – 1 [#103: Duck Soup]
Melville, Jean-P (6) [#280: Le Samourai]
Minnelli (5) – 1 [#157: The Band Wagon]
Mizoguchi (10) – 2 [#54: Ugetsu Monogatari]
Murnau, F.W. (6) – 3 [#12: Sunrise]
Ophüls, Max (7) – 2 [#77: Letter From an Unknown Woman]
Ozu, Yasujiro (7) – 2 [#10: Tokyo Story]
Pabst (4) – 1 [#189: Pandora’s Box]
Pasolini (5) – 1 [#159: Gospel According to St. Matthew, photo rt]
Peckinpah (7) – 1 [#158: The Wild Bunch]
Polanski (5) – 1 [#36: Chinatown]
Powell & Pressburger (7) – 4 [#126: A Matter of Life and Death]
Ray, Nicholas (6) [#241: Johnny Guitar]
Ray, Satyajit (6) – 3 [#59: Pather Panchali]
Renoir, Jean (10) – 3 [#3: The Rules of the Game]
Resnais (6) – 2 [#89: Last Year at Marienbad]
Rivette, Jacques (4) – 1 [#181: Celine and Julie Go Boating]
Roeg, Nicolas (4) – 2 [#136: Don’t Look Now]
Rohmer, Eric (7) [#278: My Night at Maud’s]
Rossellini (8) – 3 [#86: Voyage in Italy]
Scorsese (9) – 4 [#18: Raging Bull]
Scott, Ridley (4) – 1 [#46: Blade Runner]
Sirk (6) – 1 [#199: Written on the Wind]
Spielberg (7) – 3 [#106: Jaws]
Sturges, Preston (5) – 3 [#114: The Lady Eve]
Tarkovsky (7) – 3 [#41: Andrei Rublev]
Tourneur, Jacques (4) [#117: Out of the Past, photo right]
Truffaut (7) – 2 [#42: Jules et Jim]
Vidor, King (6) – 1 [#178: The Crowd]
Visconti (9) – 3 [#66: The Leopard]
von Sternberg, Josef (8) [#255: Blue Angel]
von Stroheim, Erich (4) – 1 [#64: Greed]
Weir (4) [#526: Picnic at Hanging Rock]
Welles (8) – 4 [#1: Citizen Kane]
Wenders (4) [#247: Wings of Desire]
Wilder (8) – 4 [#22: Some Like it Hot]
Wong Kar-Wai (5) [#328: Chungking Express]
Wyler (5) – 1 [#122: The Best Years of Our Lives]

- Those with 2+ in the top 200 that didn't make the list above -
Leone (3) – 3 [#73: Once Upon a Time in the West] - only 3 but all in top 200
Malick (2) – 2 [#164: Days of Heaven]

Those with 3: Paul Thomas Anderson, Theo Angelopoulos, Luis García Berlanga, John Boorman, James Cameron, Marcel Carné, Chen Kaige, David Cronenberg, Michael Curtiz, Brian De Palma, Clint Eastwood, Jim Jarmusch, Humphrey Jennings, Jerry Lewis, Joseph Losey, Terrence Malick, Louis Malle, Albert & David Maysles, Nikita Mikhalkov, Arthur Penn, Otto Preminger, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Carol Reed, Rob Reiner, Glauber Rocha, George Stevens, Jean-Marie Straub, Jacques Tati, Andrzej Wajda, Raoul Walsh, Robert Wise, Zhang Yimou, Fred Zinnemann

Surprises
John Cassavetes with 7, has more films in the top 1000 than Kazan (6), Lean (6). Coppola (5), Wyler (5), Dreyer (5), Wong Kar-Wai (5), Preston Sturges (5), Polanski (5), Pasolini (5), Herzog (5), Minnelli (5), Jacques Tourneur (4). He doesn’t have that many great films does he, aren’t most about average at best?

William Wyler, with 13 best director and 12 best picture nominations only has 5 in the top 1000, and his greatest (Best Years of Our Lives) is only #122. This should be an all-time top 10 film, perhaps the finest anti-war film ever made.

Billy Wilder, with such original classics as Sunset Boulevard (photo right), Stalag 17, Double Indemnity, and The Apartment, has his light gender-bending comedy Some Like It Hot at #22 just outplace Boulevard (#29) as his highest ranked film; for me it’s about 4th of his.

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner at #46. Not bad SciFi but ahead of E.T., Close Encounters, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, even another and better Philip K. Dick story in Minority Report? It has about 5 minutes of actual futuristic footage, then reverts into a typical detective action film: let’s hunt down and kill the androids/killers one at a time. Well done but hardly a top 50 all-time.

Woody Allen’s admittedly good Manhattan (photo left) outranking best picture winner Annie Hall, and the more complex and rewarding Hannah and Her Sisters. Together, a formidable trilogy, but the seamless weaving together of multiple family stories in Hannah directly inspired Ron Howard’s Parenthood, and a host of copycats.

Where are Coppola’s Tucker: A Man and His Dream and Peggie Sue Got Married? To include Godfather III over these takes an offer someone couldn’t refuse, or perhaps listing the Godfathers together as a trilogy.

Elia Kazan’s top film, On the Waterfront, is only 104th, when imitator Sergio Leone has one higher (73rd, the overblown Once Upon a Time in the West)? ..what are people looking at?

Surrealist Luis Bunuel has 15 in the top 1000, but 7 (and most) in the top 200? He admits to not shooting with a script, and just letting the cameras capture the film that he creates later with editing. Gee, how could you ever tell, as many of his films seem entertaining but pointless overall, especially Un Chien Andelou, perhaps ranked due to Dali’s participation? (it must be art if the guy who once set a stuffed giraffe on fire in a museum was involved.)

My Favorite Ten:
1-Kubrick, 2-Coppola, 3-Wilder, 4-Wyler, 5-Spielberg, 6-Scorsese, 7-Yimou, 8-Lean, 9-Kazan, 10-Bertolucci, John Huston(tie) Just out: Coen Bros., John Ford, Woody Allen, Herzog, Lang, Antonioni, Tornatore, Wong Kar-Wai, Carol Reed, Weir, Welles, Wertmuller Stanley Kubrick for sheer number of top 20 caliber films, same as Coppola, who had more mistakes having done more films. Wilder and Wyler are perhaps the most consistant. Doing just 10 is tough. For me, Welles didn't do enough great films, just a couple, Kane and Ambersons. Same with Ford - Informer and Mister Roberts are my faves.

[*Subject to change at a moment's notice]