20. Berlin Alexanderplatz
(1980) - Rainer Werner Fassbinder
If I had to make a case for
any year as the greatest in all of cinema, it would probably be 1980. Just look behind you and you'll see The
Shining, Raging Bull, and Ordinary People, but there is one film even better than
all of those, it's called The Empire Strikes Back. Ok well Berlin Alexanderplatz is my official
favorite film from the 1980s and god is it glorious. It's more like fourteen films altogether that
tells the tale of one Franz Biberkopf, played by Fassbendir regular Gunter Lamprecht,
a bad luck man living in some tough times in Germany. For those familiar with Fassbinder's work can
see this more as just an extended version of all the things he tends to love in
movies, that level of Sirkian melodrama with a host of compelling and sometimes
odd characters. The final episode though
he not only outdoes himself but all of German cinema before him. A strange and surreal odyssey that elevates
this from a solid and great story to the best film of the decade. I suppose it's technically more a miniseries
than a movie, but it was shown theatrically and well it just doesn't seem right
to make a top 100 list without my favorite film of the 80s.
19. The Big Lebowski (1998) -
Joel and Ethan Coen
I'm sure all of you that know
me knew this film was coming. I can't
really think of any film that has so steadily climbed my personal list of
greatest films quite like The Big Lebowski.
I remember the first time I watched it thinking it was funny but a
little stupid. For some website I submitted
a top ten list of 1998 and this was some embarrassingly low number like 8 or
9. Then I watched it again, and again,
and again, and well it's become a blur just how many times I've sat through
this film. When my friends are
suggesting a movie to watch and one of us says Lebowski then it's pretty much
decided. I can't think of any film that
gets better so regularly than this. The
script is quite possibly the best ever written, but if you disagree then you
probably haven't seen it as much as I have. Jeff Bridges is absolutely brilliant as the
Dude, John Turturro steals the show as Jesus Quintero, and the rest of the cast
is absolutley brilliant with a few Oscar winners to boot. However this is all the brothers Coen's show,
hilarious start to finish and so much better under closer inspection. All too many films reveal continuity gaps,
inconsistencies, and unexplainable blunders after I've seen them some two or
three dozen times, but not this it really is a perfect movie.
18. Annie Hall (1977) - Woody
Allen
I'll admit you probably don't
have to see every Woody Allen movie, in fact you probably shouldn't, but when
the man is good few have ever been better.
After a string of well liked but ultimately a little stupid movies he
finally stepped up to the plate and made the movie he was dreaming of,
kinda. Annie Hall was originally a lot
more like Deconstructing Harry, which I think is easily his best of the 90s,
but he decided to trim down some of the fantasy elements and instead made the
focus of the film about Alvy and Annie's relationship. It was Allen's greatest triumph and the one
that elevated him from comedian to great filmmaker. He hasn't slowed down since averaging a movie
a year to this day, good or bad, but a film like Annie Hall only comes around
once in a lifetime. It's probably his
funniest film and to me it's his most innovative, easy to relate to. He can have a tendency to lose touch with his
audience but I always felt like Diane Keaton was his equal in this film and she
was never better. So many of the jokes
still work wonders and you can literally see a filmmaker coming into his own as
the film progresses. Calling this a
romantic comedy is a disservice to the film, let's just refer to it as one of
the best damn movies of the 70s and the masterpiece of one of the best
directors around.
17. The Man With a Movie
Camera (1929) - Dziga Vertov
Many moons ago TCM played
Battleship Potemkin on TV late one night.
I recorded it and saw a four star film named The Man With a Movie Camera
was showing right after so I figured I'd just let the tape run. When I saw Potemkin I thought it was good but
didn't get all the fuss, when I saw the Vertov film I nearly lost my damn
mind. MWaMC is the most brilliant silent
avant-garde film of them all. A free
form experiment that's part city symphony but an absolute clinic on editing,
trick photography, super impositions, location photography, and literally
constructing a narrative via captured reality.
It's part documentary but clearly a well orchestrated movie. It was the crowning achievement in a damn
brilliant period of great Soviet film making.
Finally this year it seems the rest of the world has started to agree
with me that it is indeed better than Potemkin, but I could probably watch this
every day and still never get tired of it.
16. Intolerance (1916) - D.
W. Griffith
It is a thing of beauty to
see a great director at the peak of his powers given free reign and a somewhat
unlimited budget to make the film he envisions.
Griffith had that power after Birth of a Nation and this film was made
almost in response to it. It began with
the modern story The Mother and the Law but following the success of Birth,
Griffith decided this film needed to be a little bigger so he constructed four
separate narratives to show "love's struggle through the ages" but instead
of making the film something of an anthology he decided to mix all four stories
together. The idea of cross cutting
narratives from different time periods might seem perfectly reasonable today,
but no one was doing this in 1916, but that can be said for many of Griffith's
innovations. He built things to a
massive scale and there is something real in his Babylon that makes it mind
boggling to think this entire structure was put up in southern California. Although Babylon and the modern story are the
real show stoppers in this tale he doesn't exactly skip out on the Saint
Barthalamew's Day massacre or his story of Christ. It wouldn't be a Griffith film without a race
to the finish rescue, and this is the best he had. A huge influence on not only the Soviets but
Abel Gance who as I already mentioned was a director who deserves your praise,
this is damn near the best silent film ever.
15. La Dolce Vita (1960) -
Federico Fellini
Not far behind 1980 might be
1960 as the greatest year of cinema. A
transitional period that saw some of the all time greatest directors make some
of the all time greatest films. Federico
Fellini outdid himself and in my opinion all of Italian cinema with this
monumental film. An epic film that
essentially is about one man's hollow existence in a world of
artificiality. It helped usher in a new
wave of Italtian cinema that would no longer focus on non-professional actors
playing poverty stricken war torn peasants.
Instead this was a glamorous life, but a hollow and superficial
one. It was the film that made Fellini a
household name, brought him his first best director nomination and for better
or worse seems to be largely responsible for the whole obsession with celebrity
subculture we're constantly inundated with.
I can't say enough great things about this or Fellini, before he got too
strange and extravagant he made one of the perfect films of the 60s, and he
wasn't even done there.
14. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- David Lean
I can honestly say I never
thought this film would drop this low on my list, although it's still damn high
there are few words to describe how much I loved this. One of the first couple of films I rented
after Casablanca set me on my way I loved it almost immediately. This is the epic to end all epics, where like
Griffith during Intolerance, David Lean had all the time, money, and resources
in the world to make the film he wanted.
The production went massively over budget and over schedule but the
results were so glorious. A film that
takes it's time without being boring a glorious war film set in the middle of
the desert most of the time. It was
Peter O'Toole's first film and his greatest, it took David Lean from the great
British director known for adapting Charles Dickens to the master of the epic. An absolutely stunning film start to finish
you get the feeling like nothing was rushed in this film, and so much of the
desert was combed over to re-shoot some incredibly long shots just to make it
all look right. It's a thing of beauty
when you take the time to do it right.
13. Monty Python and the Holy
Grail (1974) - Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones
This is another one of those
films that I've always loved from the time I can remember. I recently started to wonder if there is a
film on earth funnier, ever, and I would probably say no. The first feature from the legendary Monty
Python group following their brilliant and utterly bizarre show it is the
funniest movie ever. To think I can be
pounding my fist crying laughing even after seeing this 20 times shows that
this is truly an extraordinary film.
Unlike Griffith and Lean, the two Terrys had no budget whatsoever, and
laughably made it work to their advantage.
Instead of riding horses they hit two coconuts together. Instead of fighting the great beast of
AAAAGGGGHHH, they just turned it into a cartoon, in that strange animation
style of Gilliam. Rarely has a film
turned so many of it's limitations into advantages quite like these guys. It's nearly impossible to pick a favorite
sequence or even the best line in the film.
Hanging out with my family on the holidays almost always resorts to mass
quoting of this film, but isn't that every family?
12. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) - F. W. Murnau
Well all hail the new
champion. After many years I now think
Sunrise is the greatest of all silent films.
There are some statements in film that virtually no one will argue with,
even if they don't always agree. It's
really impossible to see this film and not recognize it's brilliance. It's plot is incredibly simple but it is the
strength of it's leads helps make it so compelling. Janet Gaynor won the first best actress Oscar
courtesy of her performance here (as well as Street Angel and Seventh Heaven
but things were different then). George
O'Brien was never better as the tortured husband torn between two women and
essentially two worlds. However it is
Murnau who was making his first American film after a brilliant career in
Germany that really helps this film transcend all others. With all the resources of a major Hollywood
studio and complete artistic control he made the best film of the decade and a
masterpiece that has stood for decades as one of the all time greats. An enormous critical success during it's
time, it's disappointing box office returns effectively put a cap on Murnau's
future projects and he never came close to reaching these heights again before
his untimely death in 1931.
11. Singin’ in the Rain
(1952) - Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
There are some times when ten
films are not enough. I've been running
around saying Singin' in the Rain is in my top ten for so long I couldn't stand
the thought of parting with it. It still
belongs there, but well so do at least ten other films. The greatest musical ever made, my favorite
film of the 50s, and a film of such universal joy makes Singin' in the Rain a
truly special movie. It is so good start
to finish, with a group of songs that literally is a greatest hits of Arthur
Freed. Gene Kelly to me was the greatest
of all musical stars and the best choreographer working during MGM's golden age
of musicals. A brilliant film about the
silent era and the transition to sound it features so many iconic moments including arguably the most recognizable scene from any musical. Like so many of my other favorite films this
is just as good the 8th time watching it as the first or second. It's a film so good I can't even imagine
people who hate musicals to dislike it.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the film is how little anyone cared
about it in 1952 when it came out, as the Macho Man once said the cream always
rises to the top.
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