It's that time of year for everyone's lists to start coming out. If you haven't read my thoughts on lists before then be sure to check out my post on Umberto Eco and the fascination with lists.
This particular list compiled by the good people at the Toronto International Film Festival will have a permalink on the sidebar after today. One way to view it is as a basic list of 'film literacy' for those who fancy themselves cinephiles.
I however, think this 'literary' approach is a particularly unhelpful way to think about cinema. As though films are books to be 'read' and a 'language' to be learned. Let us then us then say that this is a list of lifeworlds to be explored, modes of being to be encountered, visions of world to beheld. Each film has a master craftsman at the helm who, in turn, brings a unique variation to the same genetic code that is Being-in-the-world.
Here is the top 25. Explore the rest at your own peril lest your inner fanboy suddenly maturates:
The Essential 100
This list represents the merging of one 100 film list as determined by an expert panel of TIFF curators with one 100 film list as determined by TIFF stakeholders.
1 THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
2 CITIZEN KANE (Orson Welles)
3 L'AVVENTURA (Michaelangelo Antonioni)
4 THE GODFATHER (Francis Ford Coppola)
5 PICKPOCKET (Robert Bresson)
6 SEVEN SAMURAI (Akira Kurosawa)
7 PATHER PANCHALI (Satyajit Ray)
8 CASABLANCA (Michael Curtiz)
9 MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA (Dziga Vertov)
10 BICYCLE THIEVES (Vittorio De Sica)
11 ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
12 8 ½ (Federico Fellini)
13 BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Sergei Eisenstein)
14 RASHOMON (Akira Kurosawa)
15 TOKYO STORY (Yasujiro Ozu)
16 THE 400 BLOWS (François Truffaut)
17 UGETSU (Kenji Mizoguchi)
18 BREATHLESS (Jean-Luc Godard)
19 L'ATALANTE (Jean Vigo)
20 CINEMA PARADISO (Giuseppe Tornatore)
21 LA GRANDE ILLUSION (Jean Renoir)
22 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (David Lean)
23 PERSONA (Ingmar Bergman)
24 GONE WITH THE WIND (Victor Fleming)
25 SUNRISE (F.W. Murnau)
via tiff.net
Comments