Continuing with “the list” here are numbers 80-61.
And don’t forget to check out Andrew Brenner’s list. He’s getting prolific with this stuff.
No more ado. Here we go.
NUMBER 80 – L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997)
Here’s another film like The Royal Tenenbaums that is just perfectly put together. The casting is almost a dream, and the performances are fantastic (Kim Basinger in an Academy Award winning role, plus Russell Crowe, Guy Peace AND Kevin Spacey all shine.) Director Curtis Hanson must be independently wealthy—he’s only made 4 films in the decade since L.A. Confidential. Either that or he put all he had creatively into this one. Either way, this film is alive. The sets and set decoration capture a vibe of 1950’s L.A. leaping right out of stock footage and the pages of pulp magazines and tabloids (it should come as no surprise that Hanson based a ton of what he did visually on old videos, photographs, and postcards.) But seeing those scenes come to life with actual, three-dimensional characters, and one heck of a well-imagined thrilling story, is just icing on the visual cake. To me this film is a masterpiece because the story works so well you don’t even notice everything else that went into the film technically, and yet you can really appreciate it merely for the technical aspects as well if you choose to (the DVD notably has a “music only” audio track, the only such track I’ve seen on a DVD.)
The film’s “Welcome to Los Angeles” 2:45 opening sequence perfectly sums up exactly the style and tone this film succeeds at on the highest level. One of the best films of the 90’s.
NUMBER 79 – SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (2008)
which of these things does not belong...
My first impression of this film is that the narrative was perfect. Is it slightly attenuated? Sure. Is it a little over the top? Maybe. But those questions are just obliterated from your mind due to the mastery of pace and photography in this film. So many people I’ve talked to about the film remark that they can’t believe that the poverty in India is so desperate (it’s probably worse.) Others talk about the film’s wonderful fairy-tale love story. Still others have marveled at the wonderful performances of completely unknown young actors. For me, the film succeeds in all of these ways, and the sum total of these fantastic elements is a film where the strengths completely outshine the weaknesses. The story is sweeping, the locations epic, and it is the narrative structure that is both a fantastic (and somewhat unique) device and why this film works so well. The division of the story allows it to be so many things–drama, romance, action, thriller–without spending too much time becoming just one of them.
Director Danny Boyle creates consistently interesting and unique films (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions) that don’t rely on star power or $150 million budgets. That he does so with such skill and deft hands also speaks to why this film works so well as a culmination of his work to date. He still looks funny as hell (and completely superimposed) in this picture though…
NUMBER 78 – THE EXORCIST (1971)
Legitimately the scariest film of all time. And it makes its bones on atmosphere—lighting, songs, sound, not merely on effects (though Linda Blair’s head spinning around remains freaky to this day, and the effects are notable.) This is a masterwork of horror. It’s psychological. It’s freaky. At its time, it was something truly new in terms of the levels of disturbance it captures. Adjusted for inflation, it’s the highest-grossing R rated film of all time. It is scary because it’s at least partially believable—Warner Brothers had to hire private security for Linda Blair after she received death threats for her portrayal as the possessed 13 year old girl that is the subject of the title action. Yes, a 13 year old actress got death threats. And Billy Graham claimed there was an actual demon living in the celluloid reels of the film. Quite simply, this is a disturbing, impactful, horror flick. It wasn’t even available in the UK until 1999!
Nominated for 10 Oscars (a horror film nominated for 10 Oscars) including acting, writing, directing and others related to the fantastic production of the film. This one is just uber-disturbing. It stays with you.
NUMBER 77 – BLOWUP (1966)
Sometimes reality is the strangest fantasy of all. That’s the tagline from the original trailer for this film, and it’s a perfect summation of what this film captures so perfectly.
Director Michelangelo Antonioni is a forgotten master of the art film, the film that is free to leave open-ended questions in its narrative and mean different things to different people. Blowup is a fantastic example of such a film, centered around a London Fashion photographer who may (or may not) have captured a murder in some random still photographs he took. I saw this in a theater with three other people. Two of us were completely blown away by it, one person was completely befuddled, and the other person was angry. It’s a rare film that engenders such varied and passionate responses, responses that closely mirror individual responses to our own reality.
This is admittedly not a film for everyone. But it stands as a landmark to me for what it says about our view of reality, or, rather, what we say about it, why we say it, and how that manifests in our actions. Antonioni chose a London Mod Fashion photographer in the late 60’s because of the somewhat-warped reality that scenario already presents. Where he goes with it will either bore you to tears, or really put you in an existential mood for a week or two. Like reality, it depends on how you interpret it.
NUMBER 76 – THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (1966)
I consider this to be one of the most all-around well made scenes in film history. This movie almost makes this list on this scene alone. Warning, this is from the end of the film. Contains spoilers.
In case you haven’t noticed by now, I am a big fan of music, sound, camera. Dialogue is way down on the list of why I appreciate films. This scene is incredible for the integration of different camera angles, the editing to the pace and build of the music, and the use of cuts to build intensity and emotional involvement.
The whole film is this way, an incredible harmonic convergence of sight, sound, song, and performance. It has been hailed as the greatest Western of all time, and several well known directors have labeled it the best directed film of all time. It deserves every ounce of praise it gets. I honest to God get chills watching that scene every single time. I don’t know if they shot it then scored it, or shot it TO the score. I like to think it’s the latter. If I made movies, this is absolutely how I would make them. So much of the Western genre is wrapped up in location, natural sounds, etc. This film does everything it should and is absolutely a top example of America’s most personal genre.
NUMBER 75 – THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG (1927)
An early Hitchcock classic. And if you haven’t guessed it, there are going to be a ton of Hitchcock films on this list. That this checks in as the lowest-ranked one should not be seen as me somehow thinking it deserves less than stellar praise. It’s also the first, though it won’t be the last, silent film on the list.
Part of the reason I value this film so much is that it is silent. Hitchcock, known to all as the master of suspense, without sound or score (though most versions are scored) shows how simple camera work, lighting, and editing can build suspense. This is like listening to Beethoven create a masterpiece with just the piano and viola. You really appreciate the individual parts more when some of them are removed. Why THE LODGER is also important is while so many silent films make their bones on grandiose themes, or melodramtic acting or situations; THE LODGER is a straight suspense story told by a master.
It’s a technically instructive film, but it’s also a great one if you’re into suspense. The story is so renowned that it has been made into several films—this is the best of the bunch. And the full title should be appreciated, “A Story of the London Fog”. Hitchcock realized that this film isn’t just about the characters, or, rather, he realized that the city ITSELF is a character. That’s the sort of realization that takes his entertainment to the level of art.
You can watch all of THE LODGER on youtube, in 9 parts.
NUMBER 74 – A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
12 Academy Award nominations. An outstanding cast playing roles they were born to play, and first played on stage. A director in Elia Kazan who understood how to build the tension and raw emotion of the film in small ways, having directed the stage show himself prior to helming the film. A fantastic score and a film that is just filled with sensuality and natural heat. It’s fitting that the film is set in New Orleans, and fitting that the lead character, portrayed incredibly by Vivien Leigh, are so full of passion that a film can barely contain them.
There is so much in this film that is just absolutely pitch perfect with the performances of the actors. In fact it won three Academy Awards for acting alone, a near rarity in cinematic history. And, notably, this is the film that basically introduced the force of nature that was/is Marlon Brando to audiences. The performances absolutely hum because of another rarity—nearly the entire Broadway cast was used in the film. It’s a tribute to the talent of Vivian Leigh that her stellar performance was the only main role with a replacement actor from stage to screen. It can’t have been easy to step into a well-oiled machine like that.
Kazan is a master of the little things. Little things like how the set of the Kowalski apartment actually gets smaller as the film goes on to heighten the suggestion of Blanche’s increasing claustrophobia. Little things like shooting this masterpiece in under 40 days. His touch is deft, not heavy-handed, and the results are fantastic. There just aren’t too many films where the performances of the actors shine so amazingly, so legendarily. Mix in an incredible score and some of the most memorable dialogue in film history, and you have a screen classic.
NUMBER 73 – NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)
The film is memorable for so many things—the lack of a score, the fantastically chilling performance of Javier Bardem, the film’s theme of the unstoppable nature of evil. But it’s this scene, the ending, that means the most to me. Spoiler free.
This is a film (and a wonderful book by Cormac McCarthy) that has more to do with its title than people realize. The film seems to be about drug money and the dogged pursuit of a real life cowboy in a game of finders keepers with one of the purest forms of evil in cinema history. On its surface, it’s a pure chase movie with good guy and bad guy lines fairly clearly drawn. But what it is really about is how this has always been and always will be no country for old men. The scene above, and the scene where Tommy Lee Jones meets with a retired sheriff and they wax poetic about how, even in 1900, this was no country for old men, are the sum of the film to me. That there are forces of nature like Javier Bardem’s character in the world is nothing new. That the older people in society feel time has passed them by is an eternal theme. To the Sherrif Ed’s of the world, things always used to be better.
Why I love this film, why it works so well to me, is in the face of that theme, the film does wonders to make me yearn for the world of MY childhood, that is, the world depicted in the film. The world where small towns, independent drug, furniture, and department stores existed. A world of roadside non-chain motels. A world without Wal-Mart. This is the world of No Country For Old Men. And even though it is inhabited by really, really depraved souls like Anton Chigurh, I found myself yearning for it as I watched the film. So while Tommy Lee Jones’ character yearns for the past, and Josh Brolin’s character has hopes for the future, I find myself yearning for the time in the film. This is one that has a very personal reaction for me. It may not play the same for everyone else.
NUMBER 72 – LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (1997)
A whimsical comedy set in a concentration camp, and its interplay and meaning with the film’s title, are what makes this film a classic. The setting of the second half of the film seems unconventional for a comedy, but it is this tragic setting that allows the film to do what the very best comedies do—punch us in the gut as they tickle our ribs. Benigni spins a perfect story featuring both sides of the tragedy/comedy coin. In fact he spins this so well that what results is a something new—like the thanatropic Victorian cards with a bird on one side and a cage on the other that create a new image when spun.
The story, a father who convinces his son through fables and lies that the horrors going on around them during holocaust era World War II are part of one big game, is sweet. The father is played so well with equal parts tenderness, self-delusion, hilarity, and poignancy by Benigni himself that it’s tougher to say which deserves more renown–his acting or his direction.
This film plays like a bittersweet fable. Like a lyrical poem that flows in waves of emotion (both “good” and “bad”) and challenges the viewer to find the good in the bad. The title is not preachy, in fact it’s subtle. If a father can watch the horrors in a concentration camp and find ways to clown for his son to make him laugh, then certainly life is beautiful. Benigni will be remembered for his Oscar acceptance antics (leaping onto the tops of seats, jumping on stage and telling Sophia Loren that he wanted to be with her in no uncertain terms, crying like a baby, you know…being Italian), but he should be remembered in general for his joie de vie. He seems like a man who truly lives the belief that life is beautiful, and with this film he’s made a masterpiece that should help us feel the same way.
NUMBER 71 – JAWS (1975)
Not to spoil the rest of the list, but you aren’t going to find a Speilberg film anywhere on it other than this one. What that means more than anything is I appreciate how well made this film really is. Considering most of his other films for me are big budget disappointments, this film shows that, at least at some point, Speilberg knew how to make movies as something other than a hack who uses the same old tricks dressed up with the newest CGI and special effects.
This is not to say I don’t appreciate the difficulty of managing a production with a huge budget. It’s more to say that Speilberg gains more of my respect as an artist with a film like Jaws. Here he generates the suspense through camera work (including the famous p.o.v. of the shark) and legendarily memorable score. He gets the most out of every inch of his sets, namely boats, and his actors. There’s a reason Jaws is better than Deep Blue Sea, a film with better effects and a much greater budget. That’s because Speilberg, rightly, recognized that the suspense is in the filmmaking style, not in the effects.
Alfred Hitchcock legendarily opined that to make a film involving the Titanic disaster and have it have any real suspense, he would open the film with a shot of a single rivet and pull back the shot slowly to reveal the entire boat. The suspense comes from how the effects and sets are presented, not the effects or the sets themselves, and not even always the story. Speilberg knew this in Jaws. He knew he would not be able to make the shark itself convincing to the point of horror, so he made the specter of the shark the source of the terror. He made the suspense and terror psychological, not merely shocking. And he does it so well in Jaws that it is clear this child of America’s “Golden Age” of Radio/TV/Film knows how to work it, which only makes his later films that rely on devices and effects aka big budgets all the more frustrating. I’m not sure he’ll ever do better than Jaws.
NUMBER 70 – THE GENERAL (1927)
Building off of how a master can work within small spaces, or with situations to create things wholly new and fantastic, we have this true comic masterpiece from the Silent Era. It’s enjoyable both from a sheer entertainment standpoint, and it’s a completely fantastic spectacle from a cinematic and comedic standpoint.
The film centers around a chase sequence featuring two trains on the same track. You know, the kind of chase sequence where the pursuer can never overtake the pursued. But this doesn’t matter to Keaton at all, nor does the limited space in which he is able to ply his trade during that sequence. Instead, as a director, he keeps coming up with new situations for his character to make the audience laugh. As an actor he’s a true artist of found comedy—rather than creating it as other masters like Chaplin do, Keaton simpy creates low-key, reliable characters who find themselves in situations that produce laughs. He’s not better than us yet one of us like many great artists, he’s actually one of us. He’s understated. He’s subtle. And this film more than any of his show why he’s a comic genius.
There are so many notable shots and sequences in this film. Films today that are so dialogue heavy to generate laughs are funny, but few films, comedic or otherwise, contain the ingenuity of Keaton’s. It’s been noted that his films mesh perfectly and flow so well that they are like music. To have said that about a silent film speaks to Keaton’s genius as well. This film makes the list because it contains what I feel is his best story, his most daring stunts, and some of his most truly ingenious comic scenarios. In the silent film era, many scenes were written around gags—pratfalls, physical comedy, props, etc. But in this film you won’t find just that. Instead you will find situations in which an everyman finds himself and is faced with opportunities and dangers. Where Keaton finds laughs in those situations is what makes this film legendary.
Can be viewed entirely on youtube, but the quality isn’t great.
NUMBER 69 – SCARLET STREET (1945)
Another thing that will become clear in this list is how my favorite genre is film noir. Some films are on this list because of what they do to evolve that genre. Some are on the list because they take some elements of the genere and play them on the grandest stages and the most outrageous scenarios imaginable. But this film makes the list because it’s one of the single best “pure” noir films of all time. The conventions that other films use to evolve the genre or change the game are acrchtypeal in this film.
I can’t write all I want to about this film without spoiling large elements of the plot. I will cut this entry short and just say that this film is unsettling. Like other films discussed above, some films make clear distinctions between black and white moral choices, this film is cast in shades of grey. You end up feeling sorry for the main character, then being angry with and for him, then hating him, or maybe not. Film Noir typcially presents characters with choices that end up as a choice between the lessor of two evils. In this film, the choices are amplified, are far-reaching, and have terrible consequences. Even the ones that seem like “good” choices.
This one is unsettling, especially if you’d rather your films have clear outcomes and “good” results. This one is much more like life. Bad decisions spiral out of control, bad choices have continual bad results. Its value is in the perfectly visioned archtypeal characters and situations. Director Fritz Lang has three films on this list, all three very different and yet similar. This one is an outstanding genre pic that with Lang’s touch becomes a landmark one, at least for me.
NUMBER 68 – NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955)
It seems fitting that the next film is also unsettling—completely and totally unsettling. While not a pure film noir, the undeniable presence of evil is manifested by Robert Mitchum in one of screen’s all time dark performances.
The plot centers around a self-labeled preacher/convict looking for money his old cellmate has hidden for his wife and children. The preacher, played with nearly unnatural primal urgency by Mitchum, is as evil as evil gets. Check out the primal scream at 1:15 or so into this clip:
The clip, and numerous other youtube clips available from the film, should also show just how hauntingly beautiful this film is. Director Charles Laughton brought his extensive knowledge and experience from the stage to all aspects of this film. Especially notable are the lighting, framing of shots, and use of shadow. It’s a brave and bold choice for a director to make such a brooding, dark, expressionistic film. At the time of its release, this style partially hamstrung the film and led to it being a critical and commercial failure. However, in the years since, it is this very style that has earned the film constant heaps of praise, including this recent entry as one of the top 100 most beautiful films of all time.
Roger Ebert summed it up perfectly in his review : “It is risky to combine horror and humor, and foolhardy to approach them through expressionism. For his first film, Laughton made a film like no other before or since, and with such confidence it seemed to draw on a lifetime of work. Critics were baffled by it, the public rejected it, and the studio had a much more expensive Mitchum picture (“Not as a Stranger”) it wanted to promote instead. But nobody who has seen “The Night of the Hunter” has forgotten it, or Mitchum’s voice coiling down those basement stairs: “Chillll . . . dren?”
NUMBER 67 – THE CONVERSATION (1974)
This film is really a bookend to the number 77 film on my list, Blowup. Both films are about how a closer inspection of what we think we saw/heard might reveal something different, about how our own views distort reality, and about how magnificently cinematic the struggle between whether we are a product of our reality or whether our reality is a product of us can be.
It’s no secret that Coppola borrowed heavily from Blowup in making The Conversation. Why this film ranks higher on my list than the masterpiece it owes so much to has to do with several things. The lead performance of Gene Hackman is outstandingly uncomfortable. As the lead character Harry Caul, he plays an audio surveillance expert who is at the same time hyper connected and therefore completely disconnected with reality. Hackman does a masterful job of making Caul’s paranoia palpable through the little things—pauses, eye clicks, physical shifting. The film would be completely empty without his performance.
The soundtrack of the film is also notable, especially for its minimalistic bent and often-atonal nature. It absolutely enhances the paranoia and discomfort in ways only perfectly-designed film scores can. It’s especially interesting that the score was written before the film, then tweaked and changed as the composer saw how to better enhance the visual images. This sort of “open source” collaborative effort only makes for a more impactful film.
Blowup captures a moment in time of a certain seemingly-unrealistic mod scene, The Conversation taps into a feeling, or scenario, still being played out as we press on into the information age. It appears at first glance as a comment on the Watergate-era, but notably it predates much of the scandal and coverage. It covers ground we are still experiencing, or will be experiencing. In that way it is as powerful as it is prescient.
NUMBER 66 – REBECCA (1940)
Alfred Hitchcock, master of film and he of direction of at least ten of the films on this list, only won one Best Picture Oscar. One. And it was for this fantastic film.
If you’re expecting the usual Hitchcock–taut suspense, sequences of frantic pacing, plot twists and turns–you are probably going to be let down. Instead of unfolding in typical Hitchcockian fashion, this film unfolds like a dream, and slowly turns into a nightmare.
The film finds a newly-married young woman completely over her head as wife in charge of a house that’s epically mammoth, and a staff that sees her as poor replacement for the recently-deceased ex wife of her new husband. The husband, played by Lawrence Oliver in his brooding best, seems incapable of love. The entire film is haunted by the specter of the deceased wife, who plays a vital role in nearly every interaction, and yet is never seen on camera. But how did she die? And what influence does she have, even from beyond the grave, of the fate of the newly married couple?
The sets are glorious, and the characters, especially the Head of Staff Mrs. Danvers whose feelings for the deceased wife simmer in ways unspeakable in 1940, are three dimensional and vibrant. The amazing house, pictured here, is a character in and of itself, so that the first line of the film is evocative and memorable. A beloved classic of literature, with a director and a legendary producer make this Best Picture winner from 1940 a memorable film.
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