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Directors pick their top ten films

post #1 of 27
6/3/05 at 8:00pm
Thread Starter 
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/f...p?story=643558

Some highlights:

QUENTIN TARANTINO

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1966)
2. Rio Bravo (Hawks, 1959)
3. Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
4. His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1939)
5. Rolling Thunder (Flynn, 1977)
6. They All Laughed (Bogdanovich, 1981)
7. The Great Escape (J Sturges, 1963)
8. Carrie (De Palma, 1976)
9. Coffy (Hill, 1973)
10. Five Fingers of Death (Chang, 1973)

PAUL VERHOEVEN

1. La Dolce Vita (Fellini, 1960)
2. Ivan the Terrible, Part II (Eisenstein, 1958)
3. Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962)
4. Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1951)
5. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
6. The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1956)
7. La Règle du Jeu (Renoir, 1939)
8. Metropolis (Lang, 1927)
9. Los Olvidados (Buñuel, 1950)
10. Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959)

JOHN BOORMAN

1. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)
2. The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1956)
3. 8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)
4. That Obscure Object of Desire (Buñuel, 1977)
5. Dr Strangelove (Kubrick, 1963)
6. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
7. Sunset Blvd (Wilder, 1950)
8. Solaris (Tarkovsky, 1972)
9. La Roue (Gance, 1923)
10. The Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915)

MILOS FORMAN

1. Amarcord (Fellini, 1973)
2. American Graffiti (Lucas, 1973)
3. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
4. City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
5. The Deer Hunter (Cimino, 1978)
6. Les Enfants du Paradis (Carné, 1945)
7. Giant (Stevens, 1956)
8. The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
9. Miracle in Milan (De Sica, 1951)
10. Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980)

CAMERON CROWE

1. The Apartment (Wilder, 1960)
2. La Règle du Jeu (Renoir, 1939)
3. La Dolce Vita (Fellini, 1960)
4. Manhattan (Allen, 1979)
5. The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946)
6. To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan, 1962)
7. Harold and Maude (Ashby, 1971)
8. Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994)
9. Quadrophenia (Roddam, 1979)
10. Ninotchka (Lubitsch, 1939)

MICHAEL MANN

1. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
2. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
3. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
4. Dr Strangelove (Kubrick, 1963)
5. Faust (Murnau, 1926)
6. Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1961)
7. My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946)
8. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
9. Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980)
10. The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)

SIDNEY LUMET

1. The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946)
2. Fanny and Alexander (Bergman, 1982)
3. The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
4. The Grapes of Wrath (Ford, 1940)
5. Intolerance (Griffith, 1916)
6. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
7. Ran (Kurosawa, 1985)
8. Roma (Fellini, 1972)
9. Singin' in the Rain (Kelly, Donen, 1952)
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
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post #2 of 27
6/3/05 at 8:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson
CAMERON CROWE

1. The Apartment (Wilder, 1960)
Quelle surprise.
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post #3 of 27
6/3/05 at 9:42pm
Quentin Tarantino's list is the only one that doesnt read like "a guide to pretentious or cliche'd top ten movie lists".
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post #4 of 27
6/3/05 at 9:45pm
Must... not... fling insults...
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post #5 of 27
6/3/05 at 10:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SPEEDRAZOR
Quentin Tarantino's list is the only one that doesnt read like "a guide to pretentious or cliche'd top ten movie lists".
Ah, yes. Fuck the opinions of Lumet and Boorman, Mann and Forman.
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post #6 of 27
6/3/05 at 10:12pm
There was a list with many more. Including John Woo and Jackie Chan. Wish I knew where it was it was linked somewhere in the asian films thread.
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post #7 of 27
6/3/05 at 10:21pm
This is a list from a couple of years ago, but no Woo or Chan.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/...rtype=director
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post #8 of 27
6/3/05 at 11:14pm
Here is an additional list from Combustible Celluloid.com


http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/faves.shtml
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post #9 of 27
6/3/05 at 11:49pm
Jerry Lewis
(Filmmaker: The Bellboy, The Nutty Professor)
  1. An Affair to Remember (1957, Leo McCarey)
  2. Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
  3. The Fountainhead (1949, King Vidor)
  4. All About Eve (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
  5. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz/William Keighley)
  6. On the Waterfront (1954, Elia Kazan)
  7. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961, Blake Edwards)
  8. Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock)
  9. Harry and the Hendersons (1987, William Dear)
  10. Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)

Bigfoot eat their dead.
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post #10 of 27
6/4/05 at 1:54am
Manns comments are intresting

Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
Coppola made the ephemeral dynamics of the mass psyche's celebratory nihilism, its self-destructive urges and transience, concrete and operatic. A fabulous picture.
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
Eisenstein invented not just film form, but a dialectical theory of the construction of cinematic narrative. He laid the theoretical foundation in 1924 and embodied it in cinema's greatest classic. Its influence in British, Weimar and American cinema is extraordinary.
Citizen Kane (Welles)
A watershed that perceives and expresses content in a grand way, never done before.
Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick)
The whole picture is a third act. It codifies and presents as outrageous satire the totality of American foreign and nuclear policy and political/military culture from 1948 to 1964. And it's more effective for being wicked ridicule than any number of cautionary fables.
Faust (Murnau)
Invented what had never been done before and delivered magic in both its human pathos and visual effects. (My selection is based on having viewed an excellent 35mm print.)
Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais)
A defining film. It's almost the end of modernism when counterposed against Godard.
My Darling Clementine (Ford)
Possibly the finest drama in the classic Western genre, with a stunningly subjective Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda). And it achieves near-perfection as cinematic narrative in its editing and shooting.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
Human experience conveyed out of the abstract elements of the human face and pure compositions. No one else has shot and realised human beings quite like Dreyer in this film.
Raging Bull (Scorsese)
We are so sucked into the failing and besotted life of La Motta and his need for and pursuit of redemption. The humanity of the picture is as extraordinary as Marty's execution, with its near-perfection in the economy, staging, blocking and compositions.
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
No other picture captures the poignancy of 'the last of', a fin-de-siècle sense of the West, of ageing, of the pathos of twilight
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post #11 of 27
6/4/05 at 2:13am
I love La Dolce Vita because of its settings, the way it was shot, the actors, but I don`t understand why this would be on a Top Best Films list. Yes it was a critic about stardom, but it more or less made to be contreversial to shock people`s morals, to provoke a reaction wich makes it very dated since it can`t possibly creat the same impulses these days.
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post #12 of 27
6/4/05 at 6:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Subotai
Ah, yes. Fuck the opinions of Lumet and Boorman, Mann and Forman.
Nah i have no problem, thats their opinions, but i find it more refreshing when someone's top ten lists actually seem to reflect their work or personality, and not something that seems like printed out lists given to film school students. Thats just me, i find it cooler when someone counts some weird cult thing that they like no matter what anyone else says, rather than a fellini movie added in to their to make them seem that much more cultured in film. i find loving something like 'Coffy' describes your individuality and character better than spouting off typical critic favourites like citizen kane and 8 1/2.

is there a problem with that? its not like im playing favourites here, a couple of those directors i like more than tarantino. i just think that list describes him better than the other directors lists do for them.

Scorsese is probably my favourite of all directors, but i also never like how he doesnt really consider or keep up that much for movies made after 1980.
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post #13 of 27
6/4/05 at 6:50am
The directors were asked to list what they thought were the greatest films in the history of cinema - not what are their favourite films. Those are two different kinds of lists, and only Tarantino went for the latter.
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post #14 of 27
6/4/05 at 7:00am
yeah well thats just boring. wow big surprise another person says citizen kane, how unexpected.
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post #15 of 27
6/4/05 at 7:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SPEEDRAZOR

its not like im playing favourites here.

But you are, you're somehow insinuating QT is cooler because he list's Coffy and Five Fingers of Death instead of a Fellini film, I know you said it's just a personal thing but that's how it came across.
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post #16 of 27
6/4/05 at 7:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon Ma
But you are, you're somehow insinuating QT is cooler because he list's Coffy and Five Fingers of Death instead of a Fellini film, I know you said it's just a personal thing but that's how it came across.
No not cooler, what i mean by my comments is its much more interesting to see someone throw in a bunch of cool flicks that are important to him. i find that much more interesting because i dont need to see another list of citizen kane's and la dolce vita's for the hundredth time. dont you think that its the little things about a person that are much more fascinating? like great about a million people would have citizen kane on their list, its gotten to the point where its just a given, but i find it much better when someone has something there just because its really important to them. because it defines them as a movie lover. i know that the movies on my top ten list arent what anyone else likes and i dont care either, because they are movies that i LOVE and have made up my total movie taste up to this point. i myself find no pleasure in reading a list of movies that ive read a hundred times before, i'd rather see a list that would put Army of Darkness alongside The Godfather. Because that just seems more complete to me, and it gives me more insight into that person's mind.
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post #17 of 27
6/4/05 at 8:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SPEEDRAZOR
yeah well thats just boring. wow big surprise another person says citizen kane, how unexpected.
Have you ever seen CITIZEN KANE? There's a pretty big reason it always makes these lists.
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post #18 of 27
6/4/05 at 8:43am
Please, ive seen it and own the dvd, i appreciate the movie a hell of a lot, doesnt mean its my favourite though. The movie is exceptionally well made, its brilliant, ahead of its time, maybe if i had witnessed it at the time of release i'd go gaga over it every time it was mentioned.

Whatever, my point about the lists being predictable and not very interesting has been lost, apparently seeing the same movies appear over and over again in everyone's list is the source of endless reading joy. forgive me, im gonna go out to my mate's house and watch The Hard Way.
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post #19 of 27
6/4/05 at 8:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SPEEDRAZOR
No not cooler, what i mean by my comments is its much more interesting to see someone throw in a bunch of cool flicks that are important to him. i find that much more interesting because i dont need to see another list of citizen kane's and la dolce vita's for the hundredth time. dont you think that its the little things about a person that are much more fascinating? like great about a million people would have citizen kane on their list, its gotten to the point where its just a given, but i find it much better when someone has something there just because its really important to them. because it defines them as a movie lover. i know that the movies on my top ten list arent what anyone else likes and i dont care either, because they are movies that i LOVE and have made up my total movie taste up to this point. i myself find no pleasure in reading a list of movies that ive read a hundred times before, i'd rather see a list that would put Army of Darkness alongside The Godfather. Because that just seems more complete to me, and it gives me more insight into that person's mind.
But those films might be important to the filmmaker and define them as a film lover, you can't dismiss it because you've seen it listed before.
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post #20 of 27
6/4/05 at 9:07am
The only thing I find surprising about those lists shown above is that they contain no movies from the last 10 years and only two from the last 20 (Pulp Fiction and Ran).
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post #21 of 27
6/4/05 at 9:17am
Not too surprising. Films are these directors' lives, not merely an interest as it is for the rest us. They should have a much stronger sense of history and perspective.
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post #22 of 27
6/4/05 at 9:26am
I'm not surprised either, most of those director's come from a different generation.
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post #23 of 27
6/4/05 at 10:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SPEEDRAZOR
No not cooler, what i mean by my comments is its much more interesting to see someone throw in a bunch of cool flicks that are important to him. i find that much more interesting because i dont need to see another list of citizen kane's and la dolce vita's for the hundredth time. dont you think that its the little things about a person that are much more fascinating? like great about a million people would have citizen kane on their list, its gotten to the point where its just a given, but i find it much better when someone has something there just because its really important to them. because it defines them as a movie lover. i know that the movies on my top ten list arent what anyone else likes and i dont care either, because they are movies that i LOVE and have made up my total movie taste up to this point. i myself find no pleasure in reading a list of movies that ive read a hundred times before, i'd rather see a list that would put Army of Darkness alongside The Godfather. Because that just seems more complete to me, and it gives me more insight into that person's mind.
This isn't about fashion. This is about favourite movies. CITIZEN KANE is important to a lot of people, myself included, who are movie lovers. That's the ultimate movie lover's movie. This is an insight into people's minds. Just because these are movies that are very famous doesn't mean it isn't. People shouldn't change their opinions just so they're fresh. The whole reason they're a top ten is that they're people's top ten movies. This isn't top ten new movies, or top ten movies aside from the usual suspects. It's a simple top ten. Again, you seem to think that this is some kind of fashion statement. Look at the people on the list. Forman. Mann. Lumet. These are people that know film through and through, so, yes, it's no real surprise that these movies are on their lists. But it shouldn't matter. You're complaining about people's taste. If you care that much, go read EW and find out what Tim Story's top ten is.
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post #24 of 27
6/4/05 at 11:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon Ma
I'm not surprised either, most of those director's come from a different generation.
It depends. If the people mentioned are simply too busy to watch films these days then yes, I agree. However, if they remain ardent cineastes, taking in as many contemporary works as they possibly can the argument becomes a little more difficult to support since movies, at least to me, seem as well-crafted today as they’ve ever been.
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post #25 of 27
6/4/05 at 12:48pm
However, time makes fools of us all.

That's probably the main reason most respectable people's lists have films that are no less than twenty years old. Because what works now may not work over time.
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post #26 of 27
6/4/05 at 4:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fett
However, time makes fools of us all.

That's probably the main reason most respectable people's lists have films that are no less than twenty years old. Because what works now may not work over time.
Perhaps, but I doubt all of the below will become seriously dated within forty years, let alone twenty:

The Shawshank Redemption
Schindler's List
The Usual Suspects
Goodfellas
The Silence of the Lambs
American Beauty
Casino
L.A. Confidential
Saving Private Ryan
Aliens
Brazil
Platoon
The Killer
Jean de Florette
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Cinema Paradiso
Seven
Memento
Amelie
The Pianist
Requiem for a Dream
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset
Hero
Sideways
Toy Story
Donnie Darko
City of God
Fargo
Miller's Crossing

And take your pick from dozens of others.
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post #27 of 27
6/9/05 at 1:57am
The irony is that for Tarantino, I don't think there is a distinction between "best" and "favorite," and that's what makes him the director he is. In the same way, Mann's comments lent insight into how he regards film. Both approach it from different places and both make great movies. But in no way do Tarantino's choices have more integrity just because some of the movies are generally regarded as shit.
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