Top Ranked Films of Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray
5 titles, 84th in points with 9,953


Satyajit Ray is India’s most famous filmmaker, and might appropriately be called the Father of Indian Cinema. Just before his death, he received an honorary Oscar for his life’s work. After his death, hundreds of thousands of Indians gathered around his house in respect. Many other filmmakers outside of India are said to have been either influenced by his work or praised it, among them Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut, Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Elia Kazan, Abbas Kiarostami, Carlos Suara, and Danny Boyle.

These are all the films of classic Indian director Satyajit Ray that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of theTop Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls.

1. Pather Panchali / Apu Trilogy I (1955) #62 Most polls list the films separately, as they should be, but one poll had the trilogy ranked as one film. I couldn’t figure out how to divide the points, so I added them to the first film, but the position isn’t as important as getting the films listed. I guess I could have split the trilogy pts among all three films, so each of the three would have been helped a little.
2. World of Apu, The (1959) #297 The 3rd Apu film, that complete the trilogy
3. Aparajito (1956) #442 The 2nd Apu film, the title means “The Unvanquished”
4. Music Room, The (1958) #582
5. Charulata (1964) #698

Out of the top 1000
6. Days and Nights in the Forest (1970) #1564

I’ve yet to be able to rent the Apu Trilogy in the U.S. For some odd reason, Netflix chooses not to carry the most famous films in Indian history, and I’m not in a position to simply buy them new sight unseen. Maybe one day Netflix will get their head out of their pocket and their hand out of ours and become truly cultural. Until then, they are about as valuable as television to the history of cinema.

For those who would like a detailed expose of his life’s work, check out the elaborate and complete listing at Wikipedia

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

Top Ranked Films of Henri-Georges Clouzot

Henri-Georges Clouzot and Romy Schneider

Henri-Georges Clouzot
3 titles, 83rd in total points with 10,033

A formalist, Clouzot’s films adhere to plot and pacing much like Hitchcock, to whom he’s been compared. It’s a pity that there weren’t very many full-length titles in his life’s work, around fifteen total.

These are all the films of classic French director Clouzot that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls.

1. The Wages of Fear (1953) #168 This film would be a masterpiece except for the silly ending ("I'm a good driver" - Rain Man)
2. Diabolique (1955) #214 (aka Les Diaboliques) We have the same title confusion as The Bicycle Thief (is it plural or singular? Depends on whose list you’re reading)
3. Quai des Orfèvres (1947) #790



Conspicuously missing is Le Corbeau (1943, aka The Raven), a brave film about a poison pen letter writer in a small town, and a film banned by both the Nazis and the victorious French. This film is a classic study of paranoia and individual guilt.

Clouzot’s stunningly beautiful Brazilian wife Vera Clouzot [photo above] stars in both Wages of Fear and Diabolique. She has a refreshing, natural beauty that remains fresh looking half a century later. In Wages, she plays a local beauty in a small South American town, who cleans floors (to admiring male eyes) in the local bar, and other assorted pleasures, who is popular with local Europeans there looking for work in the oil industry. In Diabolique, she plots to kill her husband with his mistress, then bizarre events start to happen.

Clouzot’s films won 12 awards, four for Wages of Fear, two for Diabolique.


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

Top Ranked Films of Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar
5 titles, 57th in points with 13,429

I always enjoy every Almodóvar film. I agree with the rankings of these, especially the first four, only I'd have them all higher ranked. He has a great touch with films with nearly all-female casts, as are these first four. I first discovered him in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which is probably his most comic film, almost out of character. It's an exercise in controlled chaos which works, it has an energy all it's own.

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

1. All About My Mother (1999) #206
2. Talk to Her (2002) #317
3. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) #369
4. Volver (2006) #525 [photo above, w Penelope Cruz]
5. Bad Education (2004) #864

Outside the top 1000
6. Law of Desire (1987) #1271
7. Broken Embraces #1447

I agree that All About My Mother is his best work - for me it's a near top 100 film, very mature and moving. I also found Talk to Her and Volver fascinating. I loved the Oscar®-nominated performance of Penelope Cruz in Volver, who got a nod for best actress, and deserved it.

The first four films here have almost entirely female casts. Not so with Bad Education and Law of Desire, and for some reason I didn't like those films as much - maybe I'm biased, but he seems to have an uncanny affinity for the feminine characters he films. All About My Mother was dedicated to "all women, all women who played women, and all those who want to be women", and begins with All About Eve (1950) on a small television.

Top Ranked Films of Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog
5 titles, 56th in points with 13,638

12 titles in all made polls, if all points were included, he would be 41st

Born Werner H. Stipetic in Munich, Germany, Herzog is one of the more visionary directors alive. His films like to penetrate the harshness of nature as a primal force that overpowers men. Many of these are documentaries, so I labeled them as (doc).

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

1. Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972)  #83
2. Fitzcarraldo (1982) Germany  #424
3. Grizzly Man (2005) #540 (doc)
4. Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, The (1974) #554
5. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) #880 (doc)

Those out of the top 1000, 7 more titles:
6. Encounters at the End of the World (2007) #1024 (doc)
7. White Diamond, The (2004) #1146 (doc)
8. Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) #1615 (doc)
9. Lessons of Darkness (1982) #1616 (doc)
10. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) #1733
11. Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night (1979) #1759
12. My Best Friend (1999) #2137 (doc)


Herzog is a director of vision and one perhaps prone to become obsessed with those visions, which makes him one of the most interesting directors alive.

Herzog moved this boat over a hill in the

jungle in Fitzcarraldo

Fitzcarraldo is my favorite, a mad jungle adventure with opera and a big river boat. Les Blank’s documentary of the making of this, Burden of Dreams (1982), shows just how obsessed Herzog can get with a film project.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God is another great adventure in South America, also starring Klaus Kinski, who’s a bit more mad here than as Fitzcarraldo. He seems to have truly lost it as a Spanish conquistador obsessed with finding the city of gold.

Grizzly Man was a riveting documentary about a man who lived among grizzly bears in the Alaskan wilderness. My Best Friend is about his relationship with actor Klaus Kinski.

Not ranked but also worthy of being in the top 1000 is Cobra Verde (1987) (see review here), his last with Kinski, about a South American sugar cane plantation manager sent to Africa to see about some trouble there in connection with slave trading.

His overall films' awards total 35 out of 58 nominations:

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

Top Ranked Films of Krszystof Kieslowski

Krszystof  Kieslowski
6 titles, 51st with 14,576 points

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

1. Three Colours: Red (1994) #275
2. Double Life of Veronique, The (1991) #344
3. Dekalog (1988) #361
4. Three Colours: Blue (1993) #420 My favorite of the three colors
5. Short Film About Killing, A (1988) #771
6. Three Colours: White (1994) #844

Just outside the top 1000
7. Short Film About Love, A (1988) #1396 I prefer this to the Killing one, but I could be wrong

Three Colours: Blue is a very interesting film about a woman continuing with her life after the death of her husband. This film has a strong music composition component that interested me.

I have a hard time picking a most distinguished film among these – they are all very good, none seem to be masterpieces. I suppose just because of the attempt, scope, and ingenuity that Dekalog may be the one deemed a classic in the future. It’s really ten short films put together in two feature length parts. I found it slow and uneven but riveting in parts.

Kieslowski is an artist, no one will deny that. Each film is at least interesting and worth seeing.

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

Top Ranked Films of Roberto Rossellini

Rossellini, Roberto
6 titles, 50th in points with 14,671

Rossellini was part of the wave of post-war Italian realists, that included Fellini, Antonioni, De Sica, Visconti, Ormi and others. Their influence affected a later wave of creative Italian filmmakers such as Bertolucci, Leoni, Monicelli, Caviani, and Wertmuller. Rossellini is as reknowned for his long-time affair with actress Ingrid Bergman [photo above], with whom he had daugher Isabella Rossellini, the actress. Perhaps not as celebrated as some others, but his war trilogy consisting of Paisan, Rome Open City, and Germany, Year Zero are among the best Italian postwar films that dealt with the plight of ordinary citizens as a result of the war.

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

1. Paisan (1946) #280
2. Rome, Open City (1945) #291
3. Rise to Power of Louis XIV, The (1966) #399
4. Voyage in Italy (1953) #532
5. Germany, Year Zero (1947) #580
6. Europa '51 (1952) #841
7. Stromboli (1950) #1012
8. Flowers of St. Francis, The (1950) #1231

His best films are not pleasant, but he told a story that needed to be told in each. My favorites would be: 1-Rome, Open City; 2-Germany, Year Zero; 3-Paisan

I didn't like Louis XIV very much, and was bored by Flowers of St. Francis. The others I haven't seen yet.

Top Ranked Films of Bernardo Bertolucci

Bernardo Bertolucci
5 titles, 48th in points with 15,127

Bertolucci is one of my favorite directors, The Conformist is a masterpiece. Beautifully photographed, you can see it’s influence on U.S. films like the two Godfathers. The Last Emperor was also beautifully made. He is severely underrated to me, he would be in my top 10.

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

1. Conformist, The (1970) #45 a true masterpiece
2. Last Tango in Paris (1973) #262
3. 1900 (1976) #504
4. Last Emperor, The (1987) #900
5. Spider's Stratagem, The (1970) #993

Those out of the top 1000
6. Luna #1826
7. Sheltering Sky, The #2007
8. Before the Revolution #2015

The Last Emperor should be much higher, it’s a legitimate top 100-200 of all-time, winner of 8 Oscars®, including best picture and director. It has to be a better film than Last Tango in Paris, though the latter is also a surprisingly good film, a much deeper love story than it seems. All these films are worth seeing, some several times.

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

Top Ranked Films of Vittorio De Sica

Vittorio De Sica
3 titles, 45th in points with 15,777

De Sica made post-war films in the style of Italian postwar realism. These films usually have a gritty, black-and-white style that closely resembles documentaries, shot on the streets in real light.

In an interview on a dvd, he said the day of studios making happy escapism for the masses were over, that a new world demanded films of social relevance that attacked the problems faced by humanity. De Sica usually cast amateurs in his lead roles. The lead actor of Bicycle Thief was a factory worker, and in Umberto D. a retired teacher. He probably would be ranked much higher had he made more films.

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

1. The Bicycle Thief (1948) Italy, bw #21
2. Umberto D. (1952) #80
3. Miracle in Milan (1951) #630

Just out of the top 1000
4. Shoeshine (Sciuscia, 1947) #1312

De Sica’s best films (the top two here) are tough to take, but ultimately tell universal tales of hardships faced by average citizens, especially after wars. Umberto D. is my favorite of his, dedicated to his father, it’s about an elderly pensioner who can’t survive on the meager payments he receives, yet who is somehow given hope and kept alive by his little Jack Russell dog Flike [see photo below]. This is now my favorite dog in cinema history, who by being dependent on his owner gives his owner a reason to keep going.

Umberto pretends his dog is clowning

around when a friend catches him begging

The Bicycle Thief is almost too much to take. It’s about a poor Italian man who gets a job only because he has a bicycle to get around to all the place he’ll be hanging advertising signs. One day while on a ladder putting up a sign, someone steals his bicycle. In the Sight and Sound film polls (that occur once per decade), this is the only film other than Citizen Kane to ever be ranked #1.

De Sica is a former actor who made a better director, as he was a competant actor yet prone to hamming it up. As a director he showed a delicate touch for humanitarian problems and made riveting films of Italian realism that also had social impact. These films could never fail to move a person with any compassion remaining for humanity. Umberto D. is an all-time top 20 film for me.

De Sica ranks among the best handful of Italian directors to me: Bertolucci, Antonioni, Tournatore, and Fellini would be the others. On a level below these: Rossellini, Visconti, Monicelli, Wertmuller, Pasolini, Pontecorvo, Ormi, and Caviani.

De Sica as an actor

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

Top Ranked Films of Kenji Mizoguchi

Kenji Mizoguchi
5 titles, 46th in points with 15,534

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

1. Ugetsu (1953) #85
2. Sansho the Bailiff (1954) #240
3. Princess Yang Kwei Fei (Yokihi, 1955) #414
4. Story of the Late Chrysanthemums, The (1939) #617
5. Life of Oharu, The (1952) #635

Those just out of the top 1000
6. 47 Ronin, The (1962) #1237
7. Utamaro and His Five Women #1646

I found Ugetsu  [photo above] almost mesmerizing, one of the most unusual love stories in cinema, and beautifully shot. Sansho is also beautiful to see [photo below], but the story didn’t quite have the same magic for me. Mizoguchi is a true artist with film, shooting dreamy, ethereal black-and-white films that almost seem like a journey to a magical spot that is between reality and the psyche. I need to see the rest of his works, those I’ve seen make him one look like of the few true masters of cinema art.

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

Top Ranked Films of François Truffaut

François Truffaut
5 titles, 29th in points with 20,408

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

1. The 400 Blows (1959) France, bw #37
2. Jules et Jim (1961) #73
3. Day for Night (1973) #334
4. Shoot the Piano Player (1960) #427
5. Wild Child, The (1970) #904

He had 4 more outside the top 1000
6. Two English Girls (1971) #1204
7. Woman Next Door, The (1981) #1300
8. Stolen Kisses (1968) #1767
9. Fahrenheit 451 (1966) #2065

I think they got Truffaut right, good enough ranking for me. 400 Blows is also my favorite, a largely improvised debut film with a non-professional actor in the lead role. Much of this film is auto-biographical, a reflection backward by a 25-yr old film critic of his boyhood and the influence of movies on his aimless life.

Most of these may be considered a bit light, such as Day For Night or Stolen Kisses, but at the very least Truffaut’s love of films is evident in nearly all of these. Shoot the Piano Player is his tribute to film noir, and a pretty good film in its own right. Jules and Jim is an oddball romantic triangle, led by a sparkling Jeanne Moreau. Perhaps a little overrated, it remains fresh and interesting today.

Truffaut also had an acting role in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), as the scientist that was the musical expert working with sound to communicate to the aliens.

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

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 of Sergei M. Eisenstein

Sergei M. Eisenstein
17th with 7 titles, 37th in pts 18,094

The Russian Sergei M. Eisenstein is certainly one of the fathers of modern cinema. He seemed to have the ability to combine vast cinema epics with real historical events or famous people. All these films have something to offer the serious film student. My favorite two are Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky, the last featuring the famous battle on the ice of a frozen lake. Potemkin covers the early beginnings of the Bolshevist revolution. It's said he killed more people recreated the storming of the Odessa steps than did the real event.

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

Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin

1. The Battleship Potemkin (1925) #123
2. October (1927) #347
3. Strike (1924) #454
4. Ivan the Terrible, Part One (1944) #484
5. Alexander Nevsky (1938)) #509
6. Ivan the Terrible, Part Two (1946) #551
7. Que viva Mexico! (1932) #892

Should this dude be one of the Ghostbusters,

or what? am I wrong?

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

Top Ranked Films of Michaelangelo Antonioni

Michaelangelo Antonioni
Tied for 24th with 6 titles in the top 1000, ranked 26th in pts, 21045

Antonioni was another in the new wave of Italian post-war realists, along with Rossellini, Fellini, De Sica, Visconti, and others. His 1960 black-and-white film L’avventura was his personal breakthrough and his masterpiece. He probably deserves to be higher ranked, but then he didn’t have a high volume of top quality output either, though all six of his ranked films are in the top 500. There were no more of his films mentioned in all the polls.

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

1. L'avventura (1960) Italy, bw #183
2. Blow-Up (1966) #210
3. Passenger, The (1975) #250
4. L'Eclisse (1962) #286
5. La Notte (1961) #357
6. Red Desert (1964) #408

L’avventura is one of my favorite films. First booed at Cannes by the audience, it was then given a special jury award for “cinematic beauty, for making us look at films a new way”. Unlike traditional films when the story is told by the narrative itself, usually in a chronological sequence of events, in Antonioni’s classic the story is told through visual cues and cinematic metaphors, and in which the story is secondary. Some will like this, some will not, but suffice to say that it influenced a generation of future filmmakers. It should also warrant a second viewing almost immediately so you can watch the visuals again relative to the story. Look for use of architecture as symbols, the metaphor of doorways, juxtaposition of characters in landscapes and interiors both, transitions in movement of characters.

L’avventura is about a group of friends to take a day excursion on a boat to a small island, then when they are ready to leave they can’t find one woman in their party. They eventually scour the small island, she’s not to be found, so they decide to return without her. That’s the basis of the story anyway, but there’s more told in the visuals than the dialogue or action.

L’eclisse followed L’avventura, and is also visually striking, though not nearly as compelling a story. It takes place in a futuristic city designed and begun by Mussolini that was never completed due to the war, and presents a surreal urban landscape in which human forms are dwarfed and alienated. La Notte completed what some call “Antonioni’s BW trilogy”, and though interesting, failed to captivate me anything like L’avventura – it mostly concerns a couple on an evening out at a small party at a friend’s house.

I was never a big fan of Blow-Up, it seems to be the most self-conscious and studied of all his films, yet it remains popular beyond its time. Perhaps it's the live appearance of the Yardbirds, when Jeff Beck smashes his guitar into a malfunctioning amplifier in rock angst, and started the guitar-smashing trend during live concerts. It starts as a possible murder mystery, then whatever semblance of story was there, it disappears in mindless activities such as an all-mimed tennis match.

The tepid Zabriskie Point (1970) also made one poll and came in ranked 2243rd, but it's hardly worth mentioning. Avoid it at all costs.

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

Top Ranked Films of Robert Bresson

Robert Bresson
(8 titles, tied for 11th with 5 others. He is 16th overall in points, with 25,677 – just behind the Coen Brothers and just ahead of Polanski)

Bresson is a very good French filmmaker, with nearly all of these worth watching, especially the top five. Most are classic black-and-white, and beautifully shot, often in low light (Au Hasard Balthazar, Mouchette). This is a pretty accurate account of his work, imo- start at the top of the list and work your way down if you’re unfamiliar with his films.

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

1. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) France, bw #50
2. Pickpocket (1959) #146
3. Man Escaped, A (1956) #188
4. Diary of a Country Priest (1950) #311
5. Mouchette (1967) #496
6. L'Argent (1983) #556
7. Lancelot du Lac (1974) #830
8. Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) #949


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

Top Ranked Films of Luchino Visconti

Luchino Visconti
8 titles overall, tied for 11th with 5 others. 40th in overall points with 17,919

One of seven children, Visconti was born in Milan (the town of Rocco and His Brothers) into a noble and wealthy family. In his early years he was exposed to art, music and theatre, at one time meeting the opera composer Giacomo Puccini, and the famous conductor Arturo Toscanini . During World War II he joined the Italian Communist Party.

Visconti made no secret of his homosexuality. His last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in Visconti's film The Damned. Other lovers included director Franco Zeffirelli (Romeo and Juliet, Tea with Mussolini), who also worked as part of the crew in a few of Visconti's films.

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

1. Leopard, The (1963) #151
2. Rocco and His Brothers (1964) Italy, bw #222
3. Senso (1954) #487
4. Death in Venice (1971) #516
5. La Terra Trema (1948) #794
6. Ossessione (1943) #939
7. Intruder, The (L'innocent, 1976) #967
8. Damned, The (1969) #991

Most critics rave about The Leopard – it is opulent and beautiful, but for me moves too slowly, it has no sense of pace. I much prefer Rocco and His Brothers, in classic black-and-white, a faster moving near epic tale of brothers from southern Italy who move to Milan, and a couple become professional boxers. This film seems to have directly influence Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980) bw. It's interesting that in this film, the brothers from the 'south' are referred to as "rednecks" by the northern Italians.

I also liked La Terra Trema, but was bored by The Damned and Death in Venice - again, they moved at a snail pace.

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

Top Ranked Films of Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir
8 titles, 23rd in points with 21,372

Jean Renoir is the son of the famous French impressionist painter August Renoir. He is considered by many critics to be perhaps the greatest filmmaker ever. Even though Rules of the Game came in higher on the consensus of all polls, you will more often see La Grande Illusion chosen as someone's choice for all time favorite. Woody Allen said only three films rose above cinema for him, and elevated themselves to the status of pure art: Bergman’s Seventh Seal, Antonioni’s L’avventura, and Renoir’s La Grande Illusion.

These are all the films of Renoir’s that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls. He has 8 titles in the top 1000, tied with 5 others (Bresson, Chaplin, Visconti, Powell, and Hawks) for 11th most.

1. Rules of the Game, The (1939) #63
2. Grande Illusion, La (1937) France, bw #197
3. Golden Coach, The (1952) #345
4. The River (1951) #610
5. Crime of Monsieur Lange, The (1936) #620
6. Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) #676
7. French Cancan (1954) #818
8. La Chienne (1931) #912

The River is a very good story shot in India, and I believe Renoir's first film in color.

Boudu Saved From Drowning was slightly altered and re-made as Down and Out in Beverly Hills, which had a more comedic slant than the original, a more serious film about a down and out bum who tries to drown himself.

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

Top Ranked Films of Akira Kurosawa

These are all the films of Japanese master Akira Kurosawa that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls. He is tied for 5th with 11 ranked titles, and is 4th overall in total points, after Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Scorsese. He also has 3 titles in the top 100, and many cinephiles would argue that Ikiru is perhaps his finest film and also very close to the top 100 at #101 – it will likely be within the top 100 on the next updating of these rankings as it’s reputation is growing over time. He is currently my favorite all-time director after Stanley Kubrick, and I've only seen half his vast filmography so far.

1. The Seven Samurai (1954, bw) #2 This was refilmed as the western The Magnificent Seven
2. Rashomon (1954, bw) #29
3. Ran (1985) #39 This is a retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear
4. Ikiru (1952, bw) #101
5. Yojimbo (1961, bw) #163 This was refilmed as the western Fistful of Dollars
6. Throne of Blood (1957, bw) #244 This is a retelling of Shakespeare's Macbeth
7. High and Low (1963, bw) #449
8. Dersu Uzala (1975) #646
9. Kagemusha (1980) #683
10. Hidden Fortress, The (1958, bw) #788 George Lucas said this inspired Star Wars
11. Red Beard (1965, bw) #961

Seven Samurai had the original title of The Magnificent Seven - Kurosawa changed the title when the U.S. western remake came out to avoid confusion, and is a bona fide masterpiece, perhaps the greatest film of all time. In our most recent update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films, it’s now ranked only behind The Godfather, but is much more ground-breaking. It’s gritty realistic style and in-your-face action influenced all action films to follow. On top of that, the entire battle sequence was filmed in a torrential rainstorm, so water and mud are constantly flying in front of the lens, which also helped to totally immerse the viewers in the action. I also much prefer Kurosawa’s early b&w films to the later epics in color – I’m totally bored by Ran and Kagemusha, but Dersu Uzala, about a Siberian wilderness guide, is a very good color film.

A young Toshiro Mifune plays a

detective in Stray Dog

For me, the most glaring omission here is Stray Dog (1949, bw), a police procedural about a rookie detective (played by Kurosawa favorite Toshiro Mifune) having his gun stolen on a crowded bus, and his dogged search in Tokyo’s black market for the missing gun, which is now being used to commit other crimes. This film caused a sensation in Japan and a whole wave of police procedural films as a result. His High and Low is a throwback to Stray Dog, being another police investigation, this one of a child’s kidnapping for a huge ransom from a corporate executive, also played by Toshiro Mifune. These two films will make you want to watch all of Kurosawa’s crime films.

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

Top Ranked Films of Jean-Luc Godard

These are all the films of Godard’s that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls. He place third with overall titles, tied with Bergman at 12, behind Hitchcock and Scorsese, and down from 16 in 2009, so he’s actually had four titles fall out of the top 1000. But then, with only 1 in the top 100, he's tied with about 60 others there; compare that with Kubrick's six.


1. Contempt (1963) #89
2. Pierrot le fou (1965) #124
3. Masculine-Feminine (1966) #126
4. Breathless (1959) #159
5. My Life to Live (Vivre sa vie) (1963) #171

6. Band of Outsiders (Bande à part, 1964) bw #268
7. Week-End (1967) #304
8. Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966) #341
9. Alphaville (1965) #544
10. A Woman is a Woman (1961) #712
11. Passion (1982) #951
12. Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980) #976

Not my favorite canonical director (though at least interesting), I hope he loses four over the next two years as well and he’ll be down where he more appropriately belongs. Many of his films are two hour discourses about the same thing, usually leftists reading propaganda (not that there's anything wrong with revolution! just do it, don't read a prepared statement about it - viva Che!), or sometimes people just telling you about themselves (Two or Three Things) – boring! But then, "your results may vary", lol..

Apparently others don’t think so. In fact, his top ranked film here, Contempt, is two hours of mostly silent brooding, and perfectly fits the archetype of what I don’t like about Godard – I personally think he wastes film footage and makes the creative process as easy as possible for himself by singles takes and not much editing and long scenes where not much happens. Most of these look like they were made in a few days – see Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Week-End (which is dreadful to sit through in a theater), Alphaville, and A Woman Is a Woman for more examples, if you have some time to kill. (I'd rather be having a root canal than sit through Week-End again)

A few films however, appear fresh and lively by comparison. I especially liked Band of Outsiders and Breathless – each were classic b&w films with a vitality usually lacking in Godard, these actually have pace and move like a good film should. These films may give the filmgoer a wrong impression of his overall work however, as he quickly moved from these faster-paced stories to the films with no stories, only long discourses. I received plenty of school lectures growing up, I don’t need them in films as well, not even in documentaries. Godard will be a acquired taste at best for most film fans, I find most of these more on the pretentious than artistic side of the scale.

One interesting film that didn’t make the top 1000 is better than most of these that did, Le Petit Soldat (1960), which has a journalistic and gritty style through most of its fast moving story, then disintegrates into political rhetoric. It’s about Algerian agents operating in Switzerland against France and trying to avoid capture from intelligence agents. It almost has a John Le Carré feel to it.

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

Top Ranked Films of Ingmar Bergman

The films of Swedish master Bergman are a mixed bag, as he can often produce what I consider art, as in The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, then he can descend into the angst and inner hell of characters in crisis - films like Cries and Whispers and Scenes From a Marriage almost sent me out of the theater. He is definitely a visual master worth studying, by anyone interested in cinema, but don't expect many pleasant hours here, outside of the lighter Fanny and Alexander - this is some serious stuff.

Hey, where's that midnight sun when you need it, eh?

These are all the films of Bergman’s that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls combined in a big spreadsheet. Bergman was tied with Godard for 3rd highest film count at 12 (after Hitchcock and Scorsese), and was sixth in total points among all directors, pretty lofty heights. (My own results vary, lol.. he's not my favorite; I admire him more than I like or enjoy him, and I suspect this is true of most cinephiles)

1. The Seventh Seal (1957) bw #31 Medieval knight Max von Sydow plays a chess game with Death while fleeing the Black Plague with his family - just another typical Swedish family film
2. Fanny and Alexander (1982) #46 A nostalgic family album kinda film, so un-Bergmanlike that perhaps it had a different sperm donor, I dunno.. maybe he liked Fellini's Amarcord
3. Persona (1966) #86 C'mon man, any two beautiful women I've known that were together in a house this much would have definitely experimented (and I've known many!), this film failed to deliver much of anything but a big audience tease - hey, L'avventura did the same thing now that I think about it, the dressing scene on the boat!
4. Wild Strawberries (1957) #104 Beautiful story, and realistic, just kinda slow like most Bergman films, but very rewarding, my favorite after Seventh Seal
5. Cries and Whispers (1972) #273 Not even Liv Ullman close-ups are worth all this cinematic pain
6. Winter Light (1962) #512
7. Silence, The (1963) #553
8. Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) #559
9. Scenes from a Marriage (1973) #664
10. Through a Glass Darkly (1961) #743
11. Virgin Spring, The (1960) #882
12. Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) #975


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