Best 10 Films of Russia

1. Man With the Movie Camera (1928) USSR, bw/silent [photo top]
2. The Cuckoo (2002) Russia
3. Mongol (2007) Russia
4. Come and See (1985) Russia

5. The Battleship Potemkin (1925, Eisenstein) USSR, bw
6. Ballad of a Soldier (1959) Russia, bw
7. War and Peace (1968) Russia
8. Andrei Rublev (1966, Tarkovsky)
9. Prisoner of the Mountains (1996)
10. Alexander Nevsky (1938, Eisenstein)
11. I Am Cuba (1964) Cuba-Russia, bw
12. Ivan's Childhood (1962) Russia, bw
13. The Cranes Are Flying (1957) Russia

14. The Italian (2005) Russia [photo below]
15. Siberiade (1979) Russia

Photo from Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace, which used

over 250,000 extras and ran 7 hrs in length

It was first seen in the west on 4 nights on PBS

Dziga Vertov's Man With the Movie Camera, even though silent, still looks modern today, using superimposed images, rapid edits, moving cameras.. the theme and subtitle was "A day in the life of the USSR" - now that hasn't been copied much through the decades!

All Sergei Eisenstein films are brilliant, I just happen to like Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky the most..

I need to rewatch Ivan the Terrible, it's been decades.. that's why it's not on here..

Come and See is a terrific holocaust film; the German invasion of Byelorussia and the scorched earth policy..

The War and Peace directed by Sergei Bondarchuk was the most expensive film (100 m. estimated in 1968) of it's era, and they used 250,000 members of the Red Army free of charge.. costumes must have been a real nightmare!

Andrei Tarkovsky is really a Jekyll and Hyde.. The Mirror is another good one, along with Andrei Rublev, but the others are painful to bear.. I would skip The Sacrifice, Solaris, and Stalker, unless you're a masochist

Best 10 Films of Australia

Walkabout is one of the most

breathtaking films in history

1. Babe (Chris Noonan, 1995) 10.0, comedy, 18 awards (36 noms.) - One Oscar® (7 noms) - both my favorite childrens' film and animal film (Prod. by George Miller, see below)
2. Walkabout (Nicholas Roeg, 1971) 10.0, Nominated for Palm d'Or at Cannes - adventure
3. Baraka (Ron Frick, 1992) 9.5, documentary
4. A Town Like Alice (David Stephens, 1981, 5 hrs) 9.4, Six awards - war/romance
5. Rabbit-Proof Fence (Philip Noyce, 2002) 9.2, 21 awards - adventure/docudrama
6. The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2, George Miller, 1981) 9.1, 8 awards - science fiction
7. We of the Never Never (Igor Auzins, 1982) 9.0, western/romance

The Children of Huang Shi is a WW2 film about a
British jouralist's attempt to rescue orphans in Nanking
8. My Brilliant Career (Gillian Armstrong, 1979) 8.9, 11 awards - romance/biopic
9. Animal Kingdom (David Michôd, 2010) 8.8, 28 awards (64 noms.) - Supp. actress Oscar® nom. for Jacki Weaver - crime
10. The Children of Huang Shi (Roger Spottiswoode, 2008), 8.8, war/docudrama
11. Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) 8.6, 2 awards - mystery/docudrama

Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock

More worth seeing..

Australia, with Nicole Kidman, is both a western and a war film

Australia (Baz Luhrmann, 2008) 8.2, 9 awards (35 noms.) -  adventure/romance
Samson and Delilah (Warwick Thornton, 2009) 8.2, 18 awards (23 noms.) - drama

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir, 2003) 8.1, 20 awards (60 noms.) - war/history
The Man From Snowy River (George T. Miller, 1982) 8.0, 2 awards - western (not the Aussie George Miller of Mad Max and Babe fame, but another George Miller from Scotland)
A Good Year (Ridley Scott, 2006) 8.0, romance/comedy, with Oscar® winners Russell Crowe and Marion Cotillard
Happy Feet (George Miller, 2007) 7.8, 13 awards (29 noms.) - animated comedy - one Oscar®

Babe is a pig who wants to be a shepherd in order

to help protect the sheep and to please his owner

Produced by George Miller of Mad Max fame

[see photo below]

George Miller with Cameron Diaz

at the 79th Oscars, where he won

for animated feature Happy Feet

Best 10 Films of Billy Wilder

Wilder juggles the three Oscars he won for The Apartment

Billy Wilder (born Samuel Wilder) was a newspaper reporter in Vienna in the 20's, then later Berlin, and began writing screenplays in 1929, which he did until Hitler came to power in 1933. With Jewish ancestry, he fled to Paris to escape the Nazis, then came to the U.S. He first started as a screenwriter, penning the famous Garbo film Ninotchka. With Double Indemnity in 1944, which he also wrote, he joined the ranks of directors with a film that many consider was the birth of film noir.

Wilder himself was nominated for 21 Oscars®, winning six, three for screenplay (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment), two for directing (Lost Weekend, The Apartment), one for producer of a best picture (The Apartment). Overall, Wilder won 48 awards out of 95 nominations.

1. Sunset Boulevard (1950, bw) 9.2 No. 31 on IMDB 250 Three Oscars®, 16 awards overall
2. Double Indemnity (1944, bw) 9.0 No. 53 on IMDB 250 7 Oscar® nominations, 0 wins
3. Stalag 17 (1953, bw) 8.6 No. 209 on IMDB 250 1 Oscar®, actor for William Holden
4. One, Two, Three (1961, bw) 8.8 (comedy) 1 Oscar® nomination, 5 others, 0 wins
5. Some Like It Hot (1959, bw) 8.4 (comedy) No. 81 on IMDB 250 1 Oscar®, 11 awards overall
6. The Apartment (1960, bw) 8.4 No. 91 on IMDB 250 Five Oscars®, 22 awards overall
7. Witness For the Prosecution (1957, bw) 8.3 No. 129 on IMDB 250 Six Oscar® nominations, no wins, 6 awards overall
8. The Seven Year Itch (1955) 8.2 (comedy) One award, Golden Globe for Tom Ewell, best actor
9. Ace in the Hole (1951, bw) 8.1 Two awards Int'l Film award for Wilder at Venice
10. The Fortune Cookie (1966, bw) 7.8 (comedy) Three awards, best supp. actor Oscar® for Walter Matthau
11. The Major and the Minor (1942, bw) 7.6 (comedy)

There is no more iconic image in all of cinema than

Marilyn letting the air blow up her dress in The Seven

Year Itch, nor a more copied one, as it's

been often repeated by others

The Lost Weekend should probably be on this list, but I find it so depressing that it's hard to recommend. But it did win the Oscar® for best picture, director (Wilder), and screenplay (Wilder and Charles Brackett), in 1946, for his first two academy awards.

Wilder's Oscar® nominations for picture (as producer):  The Apartment [AA]

Wilder's Oscar® nominations for director:  Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend [AA], A Foreign Affair, Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, Sabrina, Witness For the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment  [AA]

Wilder's Oscar® nominations for screenplay: Ninotchka, Ball of Fire, Hold Back the Dawn, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend  [AA], A Foreign Affair, Sunset Boulevard [AA], Ace in the Hole, Sabrina, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment  [AA]

Looking at that list of screeplays, he could have easily won 2-3 more Oscars - Ninotchka, Ball of Fire, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Ace in the Hole, Some Like It Hot are all Oscar worthy to me.

Best 10 Films of Steven Spielberg

Spielberg has directed 49 films, but produced

a total of 125 projects in all, including television,

making him one of the most influential in film history.

1. Schindler's List (1993) No. 6 on the IMDB 250, 7 Oscars®, including best picture, director 72 awards overall
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)  Two Oscars®, cinematography and sound effects 12 awards overall
3. Minority Report (2002) 2 Oscar® nominations, 16 awards overall (Acad. of SF-fantasy films gave it picture, director, screenplay, and supporting actress, Broadcast Film Critics gave it director)
4. E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial (1982) 4 Oscars®, 42 awards overall
5. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) No. 22 on the IMDB 250, 4 Oscars®, 22 awards overall "why does it always have to be snakes?"
6. Munich (2005) No Oscars (5 nominations, incl. picture, director), 7 awards overall
7. Saving Private Ryan (1998) No. 43 on the IMDB 250, 5 Oscars® (director, editing, cinematography, sound, sound effects) 57 awards overall
8. Catch Me If You Can (2002) 2 Oscar nominations, 11 awards overall
9. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) No. 107 on the IMDB 250 (one Oscar®, sound effects) 5 awards overall  "we named the dog Indiana"
10. Empire of the Sun (1987) 6 Oscar® nominations, no wins; 11 awards overall Based on the autobiographical novel by J.G. Ballard; these events happened to him as a child in Shanghai when WW2 broke out
11. Jurassic Park (1993) 3 Oscars® (Sound effects, sound, visual effects) 22 awards overall "..but when a ride breaks down at Disneyland, the pirates of the caribbean don't go out killing tourists" (that's a different film series..)
12. The Color Purple (1985) 11 Oscar® nominations, no wins (tied with Scorsese's Gangs of New York for winless total nominations) 11 awards overall

[That's 26 Oscars®, 288 awards total for just these 12 films. Add another 3 Oscars® and 12 awards for Jaws (1975),  which is #117 on the IMDB 250 - and 1 Oscar®, 5 awards for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 6 awards for Amistad, 12 more for A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and the total is 30 Oscars® and 323 awards. Steven himself has won 121 awards, including two Oscars®, both for directing: Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List - plus the honorary Irving Thalberg Award. Spielberg is listed as director on 49 film titles at IMDB.]

And as producer

• Band of Brothers (tv miniseries, 2001) He and Tom Hanks spent 100m est. on this series
• Into the West (tv miniseries, 2005)
• Back to the Future (1985) (the entire trilogy)
• Poltergeist (1982, dir. Tobe Hooper)

He was also producer on 125 titles overall, including the True Grit remake, The Lovely Bones, Men in Black, and Shrek. For my money, Band of Brothers was the best project Spielberg had a hand in, and is the best miniseries and war film of all time, ten hours total.

I guess, from looking at my rankings, that I prefer the science fiction films to reality, though I placed Schindler's List at the top. These are really hard to rank, whenever I see Catch Me If You Can, I want to move it higher again, but what do I move down? I guess E.T. and Raiders are just crowd-pleasers, like Jaws, but they do seem perfect in what they attempted, while I found Jaws a little fake-looking and not as credible, also predictable (and almost laughable at times). I never knew what the heck was coming next in Raiders, and if not for some total silliness (ie, the men on the ship all cheering when Indy was climbing onto the sub, and he waves at them - nothing like a 'low profile' for spies), it could have been the perfect adventure film.

I think with Close Encounters, the version to see is the one with Spielberg's preferred ending, I think that's the Special Edition, instead of 'Director's Cut', the term Ridley Scott used for the 2nd version of Blade Runner. [The 'Director's Cut' versions of Apocalpyse Now and The Last Emperor each added nearly an hour to the running time; this just added maybe 10 minutes] Close Encounters was mind-boggling to me (and there are no "bad guys", something it shares with 2001: A Space Odyssey), and over 500 military personnel online have sworn that the story is true (but at a different location), and that the government gave it to Spielberg because they knew he could make aliens palatable to a panic-prone public.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was a George Lucas screenplay. After the financial failure of Spielberg's 1941, Lucas wanted to help is friend out with what he suspected would be a big winner, so he turned the project over to Spielberg to direct. The result was a terrific collaboration and a take on the old movie serials, which ran one reel (15 min.) each, ending with a cliched 'cliffhanger' or a chase, to be concluded next time in a new reel; these preceded the actual movie features in the early days and were quite popular at one point, the most famous being "The Perils of Pauline", who had far more than nine lives.

Munich is better than given credit for; and it was a carefully researched project and a fair assessment of what likely happened in secret after the Munich Olympics. I liked the entire cast and it was like a realistic James Bond film.

Minority Report, from a story by author Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner), is a very underrated SF film. It has the added elements of crime and mystery, and also a good bit of action.

Other films worth seeing that he directed include Amistad (1997), A.I Artificial Intelligence (2001) (to complete Stanley Kubrick's last project, left unfinished at his death), and the War of the Worlds (2005) remake.

I probably should like The Color Purple more - it's very well done with terrific acting, but the story is pretty tough to bear, and it's one that I'll never rewatch. You can't say that about most of these, I've seen my top 9 at least twice each already, and Raiders, Minority, and Close Encounters about 5 times each, and Munich may catch up (3 times already in 5 years).

Even Spielberg's first wife, Amy Irving, produced the touching and artistic romance Crossing Delancey (1988), using money from their divorce settlement. If this was a Spielberg film, I'd have it about 8th on the list above, it's very good.

Best 10 Films of Martin Scorsese

When Scorsese finally won a best director Oscar®,

 for The Departed, he said "I think I want a recount",

making fun of the 2000 Presidential election,

and the fact that he had never won an Oscar®

Ranked by my order of preference, click for my review

1. Raging Bull (1980) best actor Oscar® for Robert De Niro, No. 75 on the IMDB top 250, 21 awards overall [This is my favorite boxing film, and one of the greatest performances in cinema history. Thelma Schoonmacher's editing also won an Oscar®]
2. The Departed (2006) best picture Oscar® (four total), No. 58 on the IMDB 250, 53 awards overall [Oscars® for picture, director, editing, screenplay]
3. Goodfellas (1990) supporting actor Oscar® for Joe Pesci, No. 15 on the IMDB 250, 35 awards overall
4. Gangs of New York (2002) no Oscars® (10 nominations, a record for non-winners), 33 awards overall, including 17 for Daniel Day-Lewis
5. Taxi Driver (1976) No. 41 on the IMDB top 250, winner Palm d'Or at Cannes, 19 awards overall
6. The King of Comedy (1982)  3 awards overall (no Oscar® nods)
7. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) best actress Oscar® for Ellen Burstyn, BAFTA for best film, 5 awards overall
8. Mean Streets (1973) 3 awards (two for De Niro's supporting performance, no Oscar® nods)
9. The Age of Innocence (1993) one Oscar® ( for costumes, 11 nominations), 11 awards overall
10. The Aviator (2004) 5 Oscars®, incl supporting actress for Cate Blanchett, 50 awards overall [Oscars® for supp. actress, art direction, editing, cinematography, costume design]
11. Shutter Island (2008) No. 249 on the IMDB 250, 3 awards overall (no Oscar® nods)

[That's 236 awards total for just these films, including 14 Oscars®: 5 for Aviator, 4 for Departed, 2 for Raging Bull, 3 others 1 each.. Scorsese has won 85 awards himself, most for directing (41 were for individual feature films) but some are for screenplays - his only Oscar® is for directing The Departed]

Ok, so we gave Marty 11 films, all of his are worth seeing, especially these..

The last ones I eliminated were: The Last Waltz, (two awards) primarily because it was a documentary, and really just a music concert.. the other was the overlong musical New York, New York ..(one award, for De Niro's performance).. it just wasn't as involving as his typical films.. also The Last Temptation of Christ  -the casting was just too bizarre, Willem Dafoe as Jesus, Harvey Keitel as Paul, the list goes on.. it did win one award, at Venice - ironically, it's only Oscar® nomination was for Scorsese's directing

Thelma Schoonmaker has edited every Scorsese

film from Raging Bull on, and has won 3 Oscars®,

for Raging Bull, The Departed, and The Aviator.

She is one of the best editors ever

Martin almost went into the priesthood in 1956, but thankfully decided to get a film degree from NYU instead. A dedicated New Yorker (who never wanted any part of L.A.), many believe this is why he was shunned at the Oscars® for so many years. Backing up that argument, another die-hard New Yorker was the recently deceased Sydney Lumet, who never won an Oscar® after directing these classics: Network, 12 Angry Men, The Verdict, Equus, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Pawnbroker, Murder on the Orient Express. [He'll be the subject of a later Best 10 Films post..]

An interesting early film of Marty's is Boxcar Bertha.. starring Barbara Hershey, apparently it's based on a true story. "America in the 30's was a free country" - that's because nobody had any money left anyway.

The Best Film of All Time?

Which movie is generally considered the best of all time? This depends on the poll you're placing in highest regard, and also whether you mean the critics choice or the popular choice among fans. There's an interesting but incomplete and unsatisfying Wikipedia article of films considered the best, check it out here

Here are some famous film polls and the winners

Sight and Sound (surveys of critics every decade, some claims this one is the gospel of polls, but since it rarely changes, I'm not so sure): Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 41), which has won every poll since the first; the only other film to win this survey is The Bicycle Thief (De Sica, 48, the Italian classic; I honestly prefer his Umberto D.)

Village Voice (Critics poll): Citizen Kane (41)
Time Out (Critics poll): Citizen Kane (41)

Steadycam Mag (poll of directors): The Searchers (Ford, 56)
Cinemaya Mag (Asian, critics poll): Tokyo Story (Ozu, 53)
Positif Mag (French): The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 39)

Brussels Worlds Fair (critics & filmmakers poll, 1958): The Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, USSR, 1925) [Obviously, held in 1958, only films up to that year were considered]

Movie Mail (fan poll): The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 54)
Entertainment Weekly (Fan poll): The Godfather (Coppola, 72)
Empire Magazine (Fan & critics poll, 2008): The Godfather (Coppola, 72)
Everyone's a Critic (online poll): The Godfather (Coppola, 72)

Internet Movie Database (fan poll): Shawshank Redemption (Darabont, 94) [Godfather is #2 at IMDB, with Godfather II right behind]

TV Guide (fan poll): The Godfather II (Coppola, 74) - I agree that his film is much better than The Godfather. The academy agreed, giving II seven Oscars overall, vs. only 3 for the first.

Cinema Magazine (Germany): Schindler's List (Spielberg, 93)
Australian tv poll, My Favorite Film: Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001-03)
German tv poll, best all time film: Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Yahoo movies (poll): Lord of the Rings - Return of the King (2003)

Movie.Com (annual reader's poll): Lord of the Rings - Return of the King (2003)
Harris Interactive (fan poll): Gone With the Wind (Fleming, 1939)
Los Angeles Daily News (readers poll): Casablanca (Curtiz, 42)
Cinamag (magazine): Cross of Iron (Peckinpah, 77)

They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? (website): Citizen Kane (Welles, 41) [This is a 'compendium' of various polls, they claim over 1600 in all]

The Auteurs (Criterion film club, votes of 100k+ members): 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1969)

The World's Best Films (a compendium of all polls): The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) [This is our own compendium of all the available polls we've found so far; it was followed by 2. 2001-A Space Odyssey, 3. Chinatown, 4. Star Wars, 5. Citizen Kane]

Metacritic (all have perfect scores of 100): Balthazar, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, The Leopard, The Conformist, Sweet Smell of Success, Fanny and Alexander, The Wizard of Oz (glad that they added The Conformist and Sweet Smell at the top, but cannot fathom how The Leopard and Wizard of Oz are here. One is a dreary bore in which almost nothing happens, the other a very stagey and average musical with amateurish acting and a girl as big as all the adults. It didn't even win the specials effects Oscar, beaten out by The Rains Came)

Total Poll Winners (from the above film polls): Citizen Kane (4), The Godfather (4), Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (3), no others won more than one. If you remove two "compendiums" of polls (from They Shoot Pictures and our own), then each of these has 3 poll wins.

GENRES
These are generally considered the best of these particular genres.

Crime
Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, though like the academy, I much prefer Godfather II, which added Robert De Niro and Lee Strasbourg to the cast and was able to drop James Caan through unnatural attrition. He really seemed more like a football halfback or an army sergeant, didn't he? But De Niro really seemed Italian, and Strasbourg really seemed Jewish. Polanski's Chinatown never wins polls, but is high enough on many to be ranked #3 overall film on our top 1000 compendium of polls. (way too high, isn't it?) Also ranked high are Hitchcock's Vertigo, Lang's M, and Scorsese's Taxi Driver

Romance
Victor Fleming's Gone With the Wind (popular polls anyway, it's fallen a bit on critics lists). This I can't fathom, all of Scarlett's romances were aberrant and unhappy; she was self-centered, spoiled, and never satisfied - this is great cinema romance? Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is really a romance, and ranked highest on our top 1000 compendium (at #10). Michael Curtiz' Casablanca (1942) also often wins polls as best cinema romance, which was #47 on our survey. My own favorite is Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), which ran the gamut of romances, from empty to full, in a complex plot that linked four families. "Why couldn't I get a real husband instead of this haircut that calls itself a man?" bemoans Maureen O'Sullivan (who played her real daughter Mia Farrow's mom in the film). Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally (1989) is another great modern one.

Drama
If you eliminate the winners from specific genres, Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) would have to be #1 here. My choice is now #2 in the polls, Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), though Joseph Mankiewicz' best picture winner All About Eve (1950), and William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, also a best picture) rate high consideration.

Comedy
Easily Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1965), which is #17 on our compendium, and #5 on the Auteurs list (the Criterion film club with over 100,000 members). Buster Keaton's silent The General (1928) is the only film close, though Chaplin's Modern Times (1936), and the Marx Brothers Duck Soup (1933) are also highly ranked. I'll go with Dr. Strangelove myself - "with a healthy ratio of women to men, say ten to one?"

Science Fiction
Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (critics, with Blade Runner second), though Star Wars is usually the winner of popular polls (crazy - Empire Strikes Back is about 200% better, as are E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, both from Spielberg)

Fantasy
Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz always seems to be ranked highest, though Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won more individual film awards than any other in history, 118 in all. This is perhaps due to the entire trilogy, but the third film was the most critically successful, and won all 11 academy awards for which it received nominations. Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957) would also have to be called fantasy, it's always ranked high on critics polls.

War
Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (I guess you could call this war, though it's also comedy and science fiction as well). For straight 'real' war action, Spielberg's Schindler's List outranks all others, followed by Coppola's Apocalypse Now!, then then David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. If you classify Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai as a war film, then it would be #1, though it's really a small skirmish involving less than 100 men.

Western
though John Ford's The Searchers is generally considered best by critics, Sergio Leone's excrutiatingly tedious The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly seems to be the most popular now, ranked #4 on the Internet Movie Database top 250 (The Shawshank Redemption is #1) and #73 on our compendium (Searchers is #46). I like Kevin Costner's Open Range (2003), though his betst picture and director-winner Dances With Wolves (1990) was far more successful, and came in 2nd to The Searchers in a tv poll.

Musical
Stanley Donen's Singin in the Rain (1952) is usually the top musical in any poll, especially if you consider Wizard of Oz fantasy and not a musical. The top concert film is usually Scorsese's The Last Waltz, though the documentary Woodstock (1970) is far better, in my opinion, and documents a generational event, not just a concert. The split screens and interviews took this film into the next level technically Adventure: Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark now seems to be the favorite, unless you would quality Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai as adventure, then it would easily be tops.

Documentary
Dziga Vertov's 1928 silent classic from Russia, Man With a Movie Camera. This astonishing film still looks modern today, and the idea was a day in the life of Russians, an idea copied a thousand times since. Even more clever, the film started with an audience coming into a theater to watch this film, and it ends with the audience leaving - so technically it's a film about the showing of itself! There's a galloping horse sequence to rival the chariot race in 59's Ben-Hur, then a shot of the cinematographer getting that sequence, then another of the director shooting the cinematographer shooting the horse, which means a third moving camera crew was also involved, all in cars speeding in parallel along with the horse. Probably the most influential documentary in history is Leni Reifenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1934), which documented Hitler's rise to power, and was influential enough for Time Magazine to award Hitler 'Man of the Year', in 1935.

Historical
For dramatic recreations of history, Sergei Eisenstein's Russian classic The Battleship Potemkin (1925) would have to be considered the critical choice. (Eisenstein famously killed more extras in storming the Odessa steps in October than were killed in the original event). However, kudos go to Gillo Pontecorvo’s Oscar-winning Battle of Algiers (1966), which used 250,000 citizen extras to fill the streets to recreate the Algerian revolution against France.

Biopic
Even though fictional, Orson Welle's Citizen Kane (1941) would have to be called a biopic; in reality it is such a thinly veiled variation of the life of legendary newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (even rosebud was his own pet name for girlfriend Marion Davies’ private parts) that Hearst unsuccessfully tried to get its release blocked. It wins lots of critics polls, never popular ones (it's just so dreary), and is #5 on our compendium of film polls. For real people, David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962) would be tops (#50 in our compendium), though Milos Foreman's Amadeus (1984) isn't far behind at #63. Raging Bull (see Sports below), would be #1 if you consider this a biopic. Other great ones are Attenborough's Gandhi (1982), and Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1988)

Sports
Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980) is usually ranked highest (#24 on our top 1000 compendium). Other ranked sports films include the best picture winning Chariots of Fire from director Hugh Hudson, and Pride of the Yankees

Horror
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) is always ranked high, and is #8 on our top 1000 compendium. (for me, this film becomes a joke after the shower scene, with Tony Perkins running around in a dress – Hannibal Lector is not threatened). The monster film King Kong (1933) is also consistantly ranked high (#40). To me, both are overrated, the scariest film for me is James Cameron's Aliens (1986), which is a far superior SF film to the original, but usually isn't ranked as highly - the original is #98 on our compendium, while Aliens is #159. Even Sigourney Weaver admitted that the first is 'nothing but And Then There Were None in space'. Silence of the Lambs (1991) would also have to be considered horror, and the best picture winner is #90 on our top ranked 1000.

Animated
John Lassiter and Pixar's Toy Story (1995) is now tops (#83 on our survey). Pixar's WALL-E (2008) is now 2nd, while the earlier favorite Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) is being quickly forgotten in the onslaught of Pixar films. My favorite is WALL-E, and I also loved Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo.

Foreign Language films (not in English)
Akira Kurosawa's classic Japanese epic The Seven Samurai (1954) would easily top a poll of just these films. De Sica's 1949 post-war classic The Bicycle Thief (or Thieves if you prefer, this confusion I can't understand, some say there was more than one thief in the film - yes, but the film was only about ONE man) would be second, or perhaps Fritz Lang's M (1931). Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950) is also high on all lists.

Silent films
Fritz Lang's science fiction masterpiece Metropolis (1926), now restored with some lost footage found in Argentina. F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Story of Two Humans (1927) is also very highly ranked, and actually won more Oscars in those awards first year than did best picture winner Wings, three to one. . Next would be the aforementioned Man With the Movie Camera (1928).

Personally, I would select Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969) as best all-time due to its influence on all science fiction films that followed. However, the most enjoyable film for me to watch again and again is Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002), the highest grossing Chinese film of all-time.

Growing up, my favorite for years was Lawrence of Arabia (1962); it’s admittedly slow and at times even boring, yet it’s ability to transport the viewer into its own desert world is unmatched. This was the best use of widescreen ever, Freddie Young’s Oscar-winning cinematography is stunning. Two of my favorites to re-watch won't make the top of any polls: Chris Noonan's Babe (1997) and George Miller's The Road Warrior (1981) - ironically, both from Australia, and George Miller worked on both (as producer on Babe).

A Consensus of Sorts

 If I had to say which films the critics favor, it would be in this order:

(1) Citizen Kane  (2) The Godfather  (3) 2001: A Space Odyssey  (4) Lord of the Rings: Return of the King  (5) The Seven Samurai  (6) The Bicycle Thief  (7) The Battleship Potemkin  (8) Dr. Strangelove  (9) The Godfather II  (10) Casablanca  (11) Fellini's 8 1/2  (12) Singin in the Rain

 If I had to rank the films the fans favor:

(1) The Godfather  (2) Lord of the Rings Trilogy  (3) Star Wars  (4) Gone With the Wind  (5) The Wizard of Oz  (6) It's a Wonderful Life  (7) Casablanca  (8) The Godfather II  (9) The Shawshank Redemption  (10) Singin in the Rain  (11) Psycho  (12) Dr. Strangelove

 Putting them all together:

(1) The Godfather  (2) Lord of the Rings Trilogy  (3) Citizen Kane  (4) The Seven Samurai  (5) The Godfather II  (6) 2001: A Space Odyssey  (7) Casablanca  (8) The Wizard of Oz  (9) It's a Wonderful Life  (10) Singin in the Rain  (11) Dr. Strangelove  (12) Psycho

Removing my personal favorites, from a critic's perspective I'd rank them thusly [click each for our review]:

1. The Godfather II (Francis Ford Coppola) [AA] 1974
2. Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson) [AA] 2003
3. The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa) Japan, 1957
4. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean) [AA] 1962
5. The Best Years of Our Lives (Willliam Wyler) [AA] 1946
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick) 1968
7. Man With the Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, Russia, bw-silent) 1928
8. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles) 1941
9. All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, bw) [AA] 1950
10. Hero (Zhang Yimou, China) 2002
11. Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, bw) 1964
12. Singin in the Rain (Stanley Donen) 1952
13. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, bw) [AA] 1942

The films I've most often rewatched are Lawrence of Arabia, 2001, Godfather II, Hero, Dr. Strangelove, and Singin in the Rain. Of those off this list, it would My Fair Lady and The Road Warrior at the top, with Hannah and Her Sisters and Raising Arizona after that.