Ten best lists of films are dumb. They force dumb choices and add almost nothing to serious discussion and criticism.
Big deal.
I love them. I love reading them. I love making them. And here is how I go about it.
At any given time I always have a list of contenders. If a film has any claim whatsoever on ever making it into my top ten, it goes on the list. Then, one by one, I cross out films until there are only ten left. These are the films that I most enjoyed watching, not those that I would necessarily rank as the highest expressions of the craft. Having said that, it is almost certainly the case that my contenders are overwhelmingly well crafted. But to make my top 10, I have to viscerally and emotionally love the experience of watching the film.
Important: “Love” does not mean that I found the experience pleasant, just that I reveled in the pleasure of watching a story told with narrative skill and total command of the formal elements of film.
The best example of a film that embodies all these confusing criteria is my favorite of them all, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Dekalog.” I suppose you could say I enjoyed watching it, but if you have seen it you will understand why “enjoy” is perhaps not quite the most apt word for the experience. What, after all, do you say about a film in which one of the very best of the sections (#1 I Am the Lord Your God) was so emotionally shattering that I have only watched it once and almost certainly will never be able to watch it again?
So here is the list as of today. If a film has a number, it made the top ten. The reasons why a film didn’t make the top ten are varied and, most often, beyond rational explanation. My choices are infinitely more visceral than cerebral.
By the way, I have a separate documentary list, which I will post soon. Salesman, although a documentary, is a work of such poignancy and genius that it would make any list I create.
I very much hope you might post your ten best lists and describe your agreements and your quarrels with mine. Perhaps you think that either an omission or inclusion of mine is unforgivable.
Let me know.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
1. Dekalog (1989)
Au Revoir les Enfants
Shop on Main Street (1965)
10. Midnight Cowboy
It’s a Wonderful Life
3. Jeux interdits
Smile
Atlantic City
Fargo
Das Boot
The General
The Swimmer
7. Goodfellas
Paris, Texas
8. Rear Window
Shoah
Invaders from Mars
4. Salesman
Strangers on a Train
The Graduate
French Connection
2. Godfather 1/Godfather 2
9. Double Indemnity
Les Enfants du Paradis
Les Diaboliques
Psycho
Le Salaire de la peur
Hotel Terminus
5. Amarcord
6. Night and Fog
Happiness
The Third Man
M
The Marriage of Maria Braun
MEDIA AND MAYHEM 
I think I have a summer movie list now professor! Godfather 1 & 2 are brilliant! I’m definately going to check the others out, thanks! Have a nice summer!
I just have to warn you that, given my tastes, this is a list that will require a lot of tissues to dry your tears. Hey you know me from class. Im a happy guy. Film, though, is where I often get in touch with sadness.
By the way, all are available from Netflix.
Enjoy your summer!
Where’s “The Blues Brothers”? That’s my all-time favorite…no better film ever made!!! I do, however, agree with your #2 (I don’t even consider it a trilogy…he should have quit while he was ahead). OK, Stevie G…I’ve said my piece. Motin out!
The great Motin is up way beyond his bed time!!
Sorry, I couldn’t give you just ten, Steve, but I did put them in today’s order of preference (it’ll change tomorrow).
The Leopard
The Conformist
Mrs. Miniver
Lacombe Lucien
Seduced and Abandoned
Lolita
Love and Anarchy
Dr. Strangelove
Woman of the Dunes
Children of Paradise
La Strada
Pyaasa
Seven Beauties
I Vitellone
Throne of Blood
Once Upon A Time In The West
Nights of Cabiria
The 400 Blows
Fellini Satyricon
8 1/2
Smiles of a Summer Night
Pygmalion
The Passenger
Amarcord
Stray Dog
The Godfather I & II
Goodfellas
Blithe Spirit
Le Rayon Vert (Summer)
Claire’s Knee
A Man and a Woman
Best Years of Our Lives
The Philadelphia Story
A Passage to India
Pierrot Le Fou
Le Samourai
Come and See
Kaagaz Ke Phool
Night of the Iguana
Gun Crazy
Pepe Le Moko
Gadjo Dilo
Five Easy Pieces
The Browning Version
Chinatown
Trainspotting
The Graduate
The Life of Emile Zola
Hell in the Pacific
So many left out…
Testing… not sure if this will work… comments to follow.
It is working Gabe, and given your familiarity with film, your comments would be especially welcome.
Steve
Hey, Professor. It’s Gabe Toro, I took your course a couple of years ago. I, too, am a complulsive list-maker, as well as a cinema lover, and as such, lists like this always intrigue me, especially when they are so varied. Movies are like diets, they must be balanced.
You have a great list, and a couple of them threaten my own. My ten…
10. Jurassic Park- The first movie I ever truly LOVED. I watch it to this day and still believe Stevie Spielberg has a warehouse filled with actual dinosaurs out there.
9. Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon- High camp, mixed with nostalgia. When you’ve got the glow, you know.
8. El Topo- I met Alejandro Jodorowsky once and honestly, it was like dining with a god.
7. W/R: Mysteries Of The Organism- The most primal, rebellious film I’ve ever seen, in that my initial reaction was to tear my clothes off and run into the streets.
6. Cinema Paradiso- I cry like a baby multiple times during this movie.
5. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy- I don’t even own the movie yet and somehow I can quote the ENTIRE THING.
4. Being John Malkovich- A movie that changed my life and made me want to become a screenwriter.
3. Do The Right Thing- Outrage, outrage, outrage- it’s both exhilarating and saddening that this film still retains it’s contemporary punch.
2. The Holy Mountain- Like the titular peak, you don’t watch this movie, you climb it.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey- Encompasses so much. Does what all movies should do- it expands the mind until it is near elastic.
I maintain a semi-professional movie blog that I think you might enjoy at fabfunk.livejournal.com , lots of thoughtful, topical analysis on today’s releases, as well as a number of cheap jokes. Hope you visit, since I’ll be following your entires from this point on.
I’m kind of relieved that I’ve seen them all. I’ve been watching all my favorite films from the 60’s and 70’s and am dismayed at how they really don’t stand up very well. What looked like realism after the plastic 50’s studio era just looks kind of slow and obvious in today’s fast lane (have you watched teenagers watch The Graduate? Not a lot of traction despite Buck Henry’s brilliant script, the incredible editing, the music, etc. etc.). The movie that caught me by surprise was Shampoo. It seemed frivolous at the time, but watching a movie about the night before Nixon was elected is pretty provocative today. Movies I would add: MASH and The Player.
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