MY TOP TEN FILMS EVER MADE

[Freya]

Noöne can deny Birth of a Nation was innovative. Even disregarding its content, the film must be remembered for pure technical achievement. On a similar note, Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompeii, while not at all a very good movie, was a revolutionary one.

Many more could be mentioned, but that's ten already.

I think it's strange you are including bad films just for technical achievment, I saw a bit of Birth of a Nation, it seemed preety incomprehensible, the bit I saw seemed to feature a bunch of coal miners and a large shed! I was not impressed! And if it's technical achievement we are talking of then surely Geoges Melies "A trip to the Moon" far eclipses Birth of a Nation. I mean if we are talking technical achievment then surely we must include star wars high on the list, and I like star wars, I even like ewoks and other pseudo bear creatures, but it wouldn't feature in my top ten.

I think Birth of a nation is really more historically significant than technically significant, as it was the basis on which a couple of major studios were founded. Technically it didn't seem that impressive.

love

Freya

[Freya]

I have to confess that I liked eyes wide shut! lol!
I would love to see the passion of joan of arc.

[Neatpuppy]

I have to confess that I liked eyes wide shut! lol!
I would love to see the passion of joan of arc.

Be sure to check out the criterion DVD commentary behind Dryer's Passion as well. It's a great film but if I remember correctly, there's some very alarming implications about films that become "national heritage."

3 hours late but here's my list. (All of them are problematic in their own way but I hope they inspire you too. )

Film Title-Year-Director

Hana-Bi (Fireworks) -1999- Takeshi Kitano
Conspirators of Pleasure-1996-Jan Svankmajer
Logan's Run-1976-Michael Anderson
Red Detachment of Women, The (Beking Rev. Opera)-1970(?)-CCCP
It happened One Nigh-1934-Frank Capra
Solyaris-1972-Andrei Tarkovsky (I 2nd this vote or anything he made.)
In the mood for love-2000-Wong Kai Way
Wuthering Heights-1992-Peter Kosminsky (Yes, I like cheese. )
To live-1994-Zhang Yinou
Blade Runner-1982-Ridley Scott

[steve hyde]

I could never say top ten, but I will tell you the first ten that stand out in my mind:

Baytong
Jagoda in the Super Market
Love and Anarchy
Chinatown
La Strada
Ran
Burden of Dreams
What's eating Gilbert Grape
Tokyo Story
Fahrenheit 911…because counter hegemonic films have the potential to wake people from there slumber. Must give credit where credit is due, but how the hell did this film win the gold palm?

[Dusty]

I think Birth of a nation is really more historically significant than technically significant, as it was the basis on which a couple of major studios were founded. Technically it didn't seem that impressive.

Birth of a Nation was the first modern film. It's a movie, as opposed to simply a recorded play, which had been what films were up until then. Griffith used the camera in ways that had never before been dreamed of. It's difficult to see now, since all movies since use the techniques he pioneered, but compare two movies made before and after Birth of a Nation side-by-side and see the stark difference:

The camera is no longer stationary looking onto a set that works in only one direction--it moves in three dimensions and views from multiple angles--the set stops being a stage. No longer does the camera roll continuously until the scene ends with the same unchanging frame; there are establishing shots, close-ups and reaction shots, high-angle shots, segments with multiple intercut settings, etc. No longer is the lighting nothing but uniform broad daylight--Griffith used different light sources and actually filmed some night scenes, which was something never before attempted. The settings are no longer confined, sparse, and unrealistic--they grow enormous, sometimes miles wide, with lavish attention to detail and utter realism required. Griffith strayed from the slow-pace of the stage and adopted a much faster style, with multiple story lines occurring simultaneously... Birth of a Nation is the pioneer of much of modern cinema and it is incredible to think that it blazed the way for everything to follow.

I would love to see the passion of joan of arc.

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc is a powerful movie. That phrase is thrown around a lot, but this film truly is powerful. I know of no other way to describe it.

The Criterion DVD is very good. Dreyer intended it to be watched silent, with no accompaniment of any kind, and the DVD offers that, but the sound track available--"Voices of Light"--captures the feeling perfectly.

[Scotness]

Birth of a Nation was the first modern film. It's a movie, as opposed to simply a recorded play, which had been what films were up until then.

Not true - the first feature film in the world was made nine years before this in 1906 in Australia - The Story of the Kelly Gang

http://www.abc.net.au/limelight/docs/films/5_1_2_4.htm

Scot

[Actor]

My top four, in order, are:

• LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
• THE LORD OF THE RINGS
• 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
• GONE WITH THE WIND

The next six, in no particular order are:

• STAR WARS
• E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
• SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
• SHANE
• THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
• ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

I compiled this list by going through the AFI's top 100 list and omitting the ones I have not seen, the ones I hate, and the ones that I think are just so-so. Then I added The Day the Earth Stood Still and Once Upon a Time in the West as egregious omissions of the AFI. That left me with 18.

The ones that did not make the cut were, in no particular order:

• The Wizard of Oz
• Psycho
• Dr. Strangelove
• High Noon
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• The Manchurian Candidate
• Patton
• The Searchers

[Dusty]

Call me a fool, but I never much cared for Gone With the Wind. I agree with you on Lawrence of Arabia, though. It would be in my list if it were longer than ten.

Not true - the first feature film in the world was made nine years before this in 1906 in Australia - The Story of the Kelly Gang

The Story Of The Kelly Gang is almost entirely lost, with only nine minutes of 12fps footage still existing--and some of that's outtakes.

I've only seen frames of the film from contemporary printings, none of the existing snippets of movie. What the film was like in its entirety, noöne can say, but of the frames I've seen it looks uncinematic and decidedly pre-Griffith. It looks to have been done in the style common of the time--static camera and such, more theatrical than anything else.

I wasn't referring to the length so much as the technique, but while it's claimed to be the first feature length film (between 40 and 90 minutes, depending on who's making the claim), that's entirely unverifiable. As it stands, the 88 minute long Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompeii is assumed to be the first and--as it survives--we can be certain of its real length. It's also boring as all hell, but it does have a few decent scenes. Nidia's escape from her dungeon by convincing the guard she had magical powers was rather funny, as was the scene with the lizard in the sorcerer's cave, but I don't think they were intended to be, and the volcanic eruption scenes were well done, but that's about all.

Admittedly, which was the first feature is disputed. Some claim Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompeii, others Judith of Bethulia, others Cleopatra, others share your claim, still others claim different. I suppose part of the dispute is precisely how long must a film be to be called "feature length". I've heard The Great Train Robbery and Le Voyage Dans la Lune stated to be the first feature length films. At 1903 and 1902, they've got the age, but if 15 minutes is a feature, I've got vacation films that are epics.


Now, had you said The Jazz Singer wasn't the first sound film (Don Juan was) or that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs wasn't the first feature length animation (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed was), I'd agree with you. But really, Birth of a Nation was the first movie-movie, in the modern sense, and for that reason it gets credit on my list.

[Scotness]

I wasn't referring to the length so much as the technique, but while it's claimed to be the first feature length film (between 40 and 90 minutes, depending on who's making the claim), that's entirely unverifiable. As it stands, the 88 minute long Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompeii is assumed to be the first and--as it survives--we can be certain of its real length. It's also boring as all hell, but it does have a few decent scenes. Nidia's escape from her dungeon by convincing the guard she had magical powers was rather funny, as was the scene with the lizard in the sorcerer's cave, but I don't think they were intended to be, and the volcanic eruption scenes were well done, but that's about all.

Admittedly, which was the first feature is disputed. Some claim Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompeii, others Judith of Bethulia, others Cleopatra, others share your claim,

Gli Ultimi giorni di Pompeii was made in 1913
Judith of Bethulia in 1914
and Cleopatra in 1912

but apart from the Story of the Kelly Gang in 1906 there was also
Robbery Under Arms in 1907 and
Thunderbolt in 1910

in fact according to this source:
http://www.abc.net.au/limelight/docs/films/5_1_2.htm

"in Australia there was an early flowering of feature film production from 1906 to 1912, pre-dating the regular appearance of narrative films of similar length (4000 feet or more) in other countries, especially Britain and the USA. In Britain, for example, the longest film made in 1911 was 2500 feet; in Australia in the same year at least twenty films were over 3000 feet, and of those nearly half were over 4000 feet."

4000 feet was about 66 minutes.

The fact the all the footage doesn't survive isn't really the point as the running length can ascertained by a number of other reliable sources.

This boom in our industry died off though from 1913 onwards as cheaper made overseas productions came in - and it wasn't till the 70's that the local industry took off again -- but to be honest from what I see now we're just becoming a branch office to the Americans again!

Scot

[jaxshooter]

Cinema Paradiso would have to be on my list.Beautiful film!Too many movies to name to be my 10 favorites.Saving Private Ryan,Apollo 13,2001,A Clockwork Orange,Triumph of the Will,Citezen Kane,The Exorcist...How's that for ecclectic?

[Freya]

The camera is no longer stationary looking onto a set that works in only one direction--it moves in three dimensions and views from multiple angles--the set stops being a stage. No longer does the camera roll continuously until the scene ends with the same unchanging frame; there are establishing shots, close-ups and reaction shots, high-angle shots, segments with multiple intercut settings, etc. No longer is the lighting nothing but uniform broad daylight--Griffith used different light sources and actually filmed some night scenes, which was something never before attempted. The settings are no longer confined, sparse, and unrealistic--they grow enormous, sometimes miles wide, with lavish attention to detail and utter realism required. Griffith strayed from the slow-pace of the stage and adopted a much faster style, with multiple story lines occurring simultaneously... Birth of a Nation is the pioneer of much of modern cinema and it is incredible to think that it blazed the way for everything to follow.

I've heard this all before but it's never really convinced me. Much of what was in Birth of a Nation was not new and had been done before. I guess Mr Bitzer combines all the different techniques in one film and a few of his own devizing too which makes it stand out a bit. However it just seems to me that that was just the state they had reached by that point in cinema. Just the next step in the evolution of narrative film.

You might say that it is more recognisable as a modern film, but from the bits I saw of it, I was distinctly unimpressed, whereas "A trip to the moon" made some years earlier seems much more impressive, both technically and in terms of actually being entertainment as we know it. Actually I even thought that the great train robbery was much, much more entertaining than Birth of a Nation. I was sooooooo dissapointed when I finally got to see a little of Birth of a Nation, it was such an empty film. I laughed a little at the bizzareness of it but that was it.

It really amazes me that only 3 years later sees the arrival of the cabinet of Dr Caligari, a truly great moment in cinema that can still hold it's head to this day. Birth of a nation actually seems to fit quite comfortably in with films like the great train robbery, from early cinema, without actually being as entertaining!

What on earth are "multiple intercut settings"?

love

Freya

[Number216]

I'll put in some of the films that I love (more than 10):

Magnolia
Brazil
West Side Story
Chasing Amy
Big Fish
Kill Bill (I liked Vol. 2 better)
2001: A Space Odyssey
Talk Radio
Pi (but wasn't it already obvious that this is one of my favorite films?)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
A Clockwork Orange
Network

The best film I have seen in the last year was Belleville Rendezvous. It has such moments of crystalline comic genius.

FINALLY! Someone ELSE who has seen that movie! I ask people about it, they haven't even heard of it. Dialogue-free fun.

Greed, too. It's cliché, but Citizen Kane deserves a place as well.

I started watching Greed last night. (taped it off of TCM; figure I'd watch the film I voted for on DVD Decision 2004) Even in its length, it's VERY well-paced and entertaining. (I thought all the stills in the restoration would slow it down; it didn't.)

Citizen Kane is also a milestone in cinematic history, but there are films I like more than that. (the people who really irritate me are those who compare every single movie to "Kane": because in their eye, every other movie sucks)

That's three down. I'd also include some of Kubrick's movies. Barry Lyndon, definitely, and 2001: A Space Odyssey and maybe Eyes Wide Shut (the later has not yet attained the respect it deserves, but give it time, it will). Bergman needs to be represented, I'd choose Det Sjunde Inseglet.

Barry Lyndon is the most artsy of Kubrick's films, and, IMO, has the best cinematography I've ever seen in a film. Eyes Wide Shut moved a little too slow for me (the 30 minutes I saw of it), but I still think people are bashing this one too much. Next time it's on HBO, I'll see if I can watch it from the beginning.

[super8man]

Vanishing Point
Aloha Bobby and Rose
Bulllit
Convoy
Death Race 2000
American Grafitti
More American Grafitti
The Driver
Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry
Le Mans

Special Mentions:
Duel
THX 1138
Blue Thunder
Mad Max
Road Warrior
Grand Prix
Midnight Cowboy
Smokey and the Bandit
Canonball
Gator
White Line Fever
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
White Lightning
Car Wash - perhaps the most influential...

Did I say Vanishing Point?

Basically, if it moves fast, I love it!
m

[soundboy]

There is only one film that has stood out over the many films I have seen..

Bad Boy Bubby is the best film ever,

[drsanchez]

I'll chime in with The Passion of Joan of Arc. Powerful is an understatement. My film society screened this film a few months ago in 16mm, no sound of course. I don't think anyone breathed until the film was over.

And there are several films that, while they might not be the best out there, they are the best for me. And my opinion is the only on that matters to me.

Chungking Express
Young Frankenstein
Office Space
Tampopo
Kicking and Screaming
Stranger Than Paradise
Sans Soleil
Ikiru