Robert Bresson is one of those acquired tastes in cinema. An auteur of the purest variety he is the only person who ever made movies quite like Robert Bresson. Amongst his small but varied output Au Hasard Balthazar was one of the harder films to find for years and the first one I had a chance to see on the big screen. I left the film utterly speechless and drove an hour home in complete silence just contemplating the final, incredible image of this movie. It’s hard for a movie to effect you like that to hold up as well the next time you watch it, but few cinematic experiences would ever equal that feeling on one Sunday in spring.
99. Early Summer (1951) - Yasujiro Ozu
Speaking of acquired tastes. Yasujiro Ozu is as singular as a director is likely to get. If you’ve seen one you’ve seen ‘em all might apply here, but if you haven’t seen any then prepare for a special kind of movie making. Tokyo Story is by far his best known and highest praised film but I have always preferred Early Summer, and his Tati-esque Ohayu. This film is perfect start to finish and of the many, many, many family dramas Ozu made this is my favorite. Early Summer blends all the things that makes Ozu great, subtly weaving some low brow humor in there to boot.
98. Modern Times (1936) - Charles Chaplin
My favorite Chaplin films seems to change every time I watch one. No idea how this dropped so low on my list, but well those are the breaks. After sitting through The Gold Rush, City Lights, and this over the past year, Modern Times has become the new favorite. Not entirely silent, but Chaplin wisely decided his tramp would never speak on camera. The film can be seen as a pre-quel of sorts to that first appearance in The Tramp (1915), but as a final send off to a director who could do no wrong by 1936. Nothing is sacred and Chaplin even pokes fun at some of his own leftist political ideas. However the saving grace of the film is Paulette Goddard who is far and away Chaplin’s greatest leading lady and the rare heroine who was put on equal footing with him.
97. Children of Paradise (1945) - Marcel Carne
The legendary French epic has come up in several of my blogs before so it’s inclusion here shouldn’t be a surprise. A grandiose film that consists of two somewhat self-contained segments about a long gone era of France’s distant past. Centered around a lovely lady and the men who all seem to love her. For many it was the crowning achievement of Marcel Carne and screenwriter Jacques Prevert, yet some simply love it because it was made on such a massive scale under the noses of occupying Nazi forces, making it’s mere existence seem like a minor miracle.
96. The Cremator (1968) - Juraj Herz
Sometime in late 2006 I decided I needed to see a lot more Czechoslovakian films. So I went out and literally rented every one I could find, and then one day I found this gem on an import DVD. It absolutely blew me away and was the best of all the Czech films I discovered on that massive bender. Part horror film, part black comedy, and film with a unique and slightly unsettling visual style it represents nearly everything great about that delightful period of cinema in Czechoslovakia from 1964-1968. It also seems in some ways a final masterpiece considering it was made the same year Soviet forces occupied Prague and clamped down immensely on censorship effectively ending one of Europe’s most rewarding “new waves”.
95. Rocky/Rocky II/Rocky III/Rocky IV (1976-1985) - John G. Avilsden and Sylvester Stallone
Alright I love Rocky movies, like a lot, more than most people, but even I know they should have quit when they were ahead. The first Rocky film is a damn masterpiece, and although it was up against some outstanding competition it managed to win a best picture Oscar. The second one takes a dark turn and finds a new way to make Rocky an underdog. Now part three might be a bit silly for some, but hey Hulk Hogan and Mr. T are in it and this is when we start to see Rocky as a real champion. So I’ll say this about Rocky IV, it’s damn near my favorite thing ever. Ivan Drago is far and away Rocky’s greatest opponent, and Stallone the director was never more obsessed with montages. Everything about this film I love and to me nothing quite says “America in the 80s” like Rocky IV. Let us never speak of the films that followed it.
94. Ordet (1955) - Carl Dreyer
This film stylistically is night and day from Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc. A deeply religious film with a slow pace and incredible long tracking shots. Dreyer’s style preceded Antonioni, Jancso, and so many others in his wake. In some ways Dreyer was the original Terrence Mallick. Which is to say after Joan of Arc he made about one movie a decade, but each of them are highly praised masterpieces. I was on the verge of tears watching this film and that’s saying a lot. It’s a film of faith made by someone who apparently didn’t have any, that’s still incredibly powerful. Hard to describe his work to someone unfamiliar with it, but if you can call this a religious film it just might be the best of them all.
93. The Incredibles (2004) - Brad Bird
With Cars 2 and Brave people have started to wonder if Pixar has maybe lost their mojo. No matter the films they produced over the last dozen years or so will stand out as possibly the best animated movies ever. An incredible run of films made by great filmmakers with an emphasis on quality and nearly universal appeal. Being a comic book fan that I am, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that The Incredibles is my favorite of the bunch (although the Toy Story trilogy isn’t a bad choice). Brad Bird who came from The Simpsons when they were good crafted a hilarious yet richly layered masterpiece about a super hero family that seems to make the most of two subgenres of cinema. It features a stellar cast of voice actors and an award worthy sound design. This is the high water mark of the very impressive run of Pixar films.
92. Aguirre the Wrath of God (1972) - Werner Herzog
Nearly all stories of the production of Aguirre the Wrath of God seem legitimately insane. Klaus Kinski was a lunatic but he met his match in Werner Herzog who is the film director equivalent to the guy from the Dos Equis commercials. So it is mind boggling that the two would team up for four more features. Aguirre is easily the best, a slightly hypnotic journey down the Amazon on a search for El Dorado that slowly descends into madness. A direct influence on Apocalypse Now and one of the first German films to be popular abroad since the golden age of Lang and Murnau. I just wish there were more movies exactly like this.
91. Marriage of the Blessed (1989) - Mohsen Makhmalbaf
There will always be various film wars. Keaton vs. Chaplin, Godard vs. Truffaut, Kurosawa vs. Mizoguchi, etc. However in the debate of Iran’s greatest filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami seems to be given that title without any debate. Well I say no, dag nabbit. Mohsen Makhmalbaf at his peak was an infinitely better filmmaker. I know they were different stylistically, but both had a penchant for mixing documentary with fiction, often casting non-professional actors re-enacting real stories. For Marriage of the Blessed, arguably Makhmalbaf’s most spectacular film he tells the tale of a shell shocked photographer who has not recovered from the atrocities he has seen after his involvement in the Iran-Iraq war. The film constantly bounces between reality and surrealism, brilliantly using sound to link things back to his traumatic experiences. One of the last films I watched before making this list, I have officially crowned it the greatest Iranian film of them all, I’m willing to hear your argument against it though.
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