After reading Steve’s and Kelly’s post on Roger Ebert’s top-10 greatest movies of all time, I decided to make a top-10 list, because I thought it will be fun. Writing down a list should be easy – it would start with the first movie and end with the tenth. Unfortunately, life is not so simple. So, you have to endure with me, during this long introduction at the beginning and a long apology at the end. I am sorry for that.
I wasn’t sure whether I can separate the meanings of ‘favourite’ and ‘greatest’. It was too hard. It was difficult to leave out favourites in the pursuit of ‘greatness’. So, I will call my list ‘My top-10 favourites’. However, I decided to not include romantic comedies, action movies, thrillers, horror movies, spy movies, animation movies and the like. I love all these genres (I can watch ‘The Transformers’ and ‘The Transporter’ any number of times), but I thought that I will include only ‘arty’ kind of movies. (Now please don’t pounce on me and tell me that there are ‘arty’ romance movies and ‘arty’ action movies and kill me 🙂) I also decided to include only American, European and Japanese movies on this list. I would have loved to include Indian movies but then I decided to make a separate list of favourite Indian movies. I also ignored Oscar nominees of recent years – selectively, of course.
So, subject to the above caveats, here is my top-10 alltime favourite movies, in no particular order.
(1) Hamlet – This film version of Shakespeare’s play is faithful to the original. Laurence Olivier as the tortured Prince of Denmark is peerless. The last scene where Horatio says – “Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” – still makes me cry.
(2) Casablanca – I had to include a Humphrey Bogart and an Ingrid Bergman movie – two of my favourite movie stars – and which one better than the one in which both of them had acted together. One of the great love stories of all time. It still makes me happy and sad.
(3) Burnt by the Sun – Set in Russia during the time of the purges brought out by Stalin, this tells the story of a retired army officer who is living the happy Russian life in his village with his young wife and children when the boyhood sweetheart of his wife arrives on the scene. But appearances are deceptive and this man is not what he seems. This movie showed me that things can change in an instant and then we will spend the rest of our life or whatever is left of it, yearning for the past. I am a big fan of Nikita Mikhalkov who has acted in and directed this movie. I love all his movies but I think this is his best. It won the Jury prize in Cannes and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film – both in 1994.
(4) A Special Day – It is a movie set during World War 2 Italy. Hitler has come to Italy and Mussolini is welcoming him with a parade. Everyone in a particular apartment complex has left to see the parade except for the building caretaker. And two people. One of them is a housewife who has work at home. Another is a mysterious man who is packing stuff in his house. When the two meet accidentally, something happens. Sophia Loren is brilliant as the housewife – I didn’t know that she was such a brilliant actress. Hollywood has totally wasted her talent casting her in sexy-siren roles. Marcelo Mastroianni as the mysterious man is wonderful too.
(5) Rashomon – A man is travelling with his wife through a forest and he gets killed. Who is the murderer and why was he killed? The court assembles witnesses who each tell a different story. Which is the truth? Is there something called the absolute truth? The movie asks these interesting questions. I have seen this Akira Kurosawa movie many times and it is wonderful each time. One of my dear friends who has probably watched all the best movies ever made, told me that Kurosawa’s ‘Ikiru’ is better than ‘Rashomon’. I can’t see how Kurosawa could have improved on ‘Rashomon’. I want to watch ‘Ikiru’ now and find out.
(6) Wild Strawberries – A retired professor goes on a long trip by car with his daughter-in-law to get a honorary degree. During the trip he meets many people who remind him of his own past life. He takes a trip down memory lane. This interplay of what happens during the current time and the professor’s trip down memory line form the rest of the story. I haven’t seen many of Ingmar Bergman’s movies, but this is my favourite out of the ones I have seen.
(7) Things We Lost in the Fire – Shows the relationship between a young, widowed mother and her husband’s closest friend who is a drug addict. For some reason I have never warmed up to Benicio Del Torro before but loved his performance here. Halle Berry as the young widowed mother has done brilliantly. This movie also taught me a new phrase ‘God’s Kiss’.
(8) 12 Angry Men – How a juror convinces the rest of the jury of the innocence of the accused is the story. I have mostly seen Henry Fonda as a villain, most memorably in ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’. So it was interesting to see him as a juror in this movie. Fonda is brilliant in that role. I fell in love with director Sidney Lumet after seeing this movie.
(9) Pulp Fiction – I love all of Quentin Tarantino’s movies. But this one – the most studied and analysed movie of his – has to take the cake. It was a close race between this and ‘Reservoir Dogs’ though. Samuel Jackson is brilliant in this movie. Uma Thurman played her perfect role to date. And Tarantino shows that violence can be art.
(10) The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – I had to include a Clint Eastwood movie 🙂 ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ is one of my top two favourite westerns, the other being ‘Django‘. Coincidentally, both of them spaghetti westerns. Film critics and connoisseurs of westerns might look down on spaghetti westerns (westerns made by Italians and non-Americans), but Sergio Leone showed that the imitation could be better than the original. When people tell me that John Wayne was the greatest hero of westerns, I ask them – ‘Have you watched Clint Eastwood?’ J
Some of the movies that I really wanted to include, but had to leave out were ‘Juno’ (a movie I love watching again and again. It is about teen pregnancy), ‘The Reader’ (I really wanted Kate Winslet on the list), ‘Heaven Can Wait’ (which has one of my favourite golden-era actresses Gene Tierney), ‘The Little Foxes’ (starring another of my favourite actresses Bette Davis who plays the role of an awesome villain in the movie), ‘The Petrified Forest’ (in which I loved all the characters including the charismatic robber played by Humphrey Bogart), ‘The Piano’ (Jane Campion is a genius), ‘The Godfather’ (It used to be one of my favourite movies but for some reason the power of the movie has waned in recent times.), ‘Before Sunrise’ (I really felt bad at leaving this one out), ‘Crimson Tide’ (the conversation on Lippizaner horses by Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington was enough for me), ‘The Band’s Visit’ (beautiful movie about Egyptian musicians who travel to Israel for a concert and lose their way there and end up in the middle of nowhere and have some pleasantly surprising experiences as a result), ‘Stromboli’ (I had included one Ingrid Bergman movie and so had to leave this out), ‘Irony of Fate’ (probably my most favourite Russian movie. Unfortunately it is a romantic comedy and because this was an ‘arty’ movie list, it was pipped by the artistic credentials of ‘Burnt by the Sun’), two Clint Eastwood movies ‘Gran Torino’ and ‘A Perfect World’ (there was room only for one Clint Eastwood movie), ‘An Unfinished Piece on the Mechanical Piano’ (a movie based on a Chekhov play called ‘Platonov’. The long unwieldy title hides behind it a beautiful work of art. Unfortunately, there was room for only one Russian movie), ‘The Weakness of the Bolshevik’ (a Spanish movie which tells an achingly beautiful story of love between a bank executive and a teenage girl), ‘Dr.No’ (the first Bond movie might be viewed as just an entertainment vehicle. But the first scene where Bond is introduced is one of the best character introductions I have seen. It gives me goose pimples even now! Sean Connery is so masculine and handsome – it is no wonder that he is frequently voted as the sexiest man alive! The film nearly excelled itself on this aspect with the introduction scene of Ursula Andress as Honey Rider. The Bond introduction was better though, in my opinion), ‘Amelie’ (a beautiful, funny French love story which made me fall in love with Audrey Tautou), ‘No Man’s Land’ (a film based on the Bosnian war which I really loved and for which I should really have found room in my list) and ‘The Curse of the Golden Flower’ (directed by my favourite Chinese director Zhang Yimou, it is a grand movie with sweeping sets and depicts palace intrigue during the Tang dynasty).
There are no movies by Stanley Kubrick (one of my alltime favourite directors – I really wish I had found room for ‘Paths of Glory’ on my list), Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorcese on my list, which is really disappointing.
If I try making a top-10 list tomorrow, I am sure I will have a different set of movies on that list! It is so hard to make just one top-10 list! I think I should make separate lists for American, European, Indian, Asian and ROTW movies.
What do you think of my list? Which are your alltime favourite top-10 movies?
Casablanca held the #1 spot on my movies list for a very long time. It’s nice to see we have something in common movie-wise.
I remember seeing Pulp Fiction in the theater when it first came out and being stressed out over the violence (the scene where the gun accidentally goes off in the car freaked me out). I haven’t seen any Tarantino movies in the theater since then. Now I watch them at home on DVD so I can forward the scenes and find out which characters are going to die in horrible ways. I don’t like to be surprised that way.
Having said that, my favorite Kurosawa film is Throne of Blood.
Glad to know that ‘Casablanca’ was your top-favourite for a long time, M—–l. I haven’t seen any of the Tarantino movies in the theatre, but I can imagine what you felt when you saw ‘Pulp Fiction’. I also found ‘Kill Bill’ quite violent. I haven’t seen ‘Throne of Blood’ yet. Thanks for mentioning it. I will watch it soon.
Hi Vishy,
interesting you narrowed down your Top-10 to fit certain criteria. Your “honorable mentions” are more interesting to me than the Top-10 😉
I find movies are so much about mood. Just like music. That’s why the list is ever changing. Far more so than with books I’d say.
I really need to watch “Rashomon”, but so far I haven’t found myself in the right mood when the film was available. I like Kurosawa’s “Ran”, which is his version of Shakespeare’s “King Lear”.
Do you know Sidney Lumet’s “The Offence”? I think it’s Sean Connery’s best acting role. Also, AFAIK, it was Connery’s project. As part of his deal to do “Diamonds are Forever”, he wanted the movie company to back two of his own projects. One was a documentary on the plight of workers in Scotland, the other was “The Offence”. Connery hired Lumet. At least that’s what I heard. Anyway, great dramatic movie. You seldom get police movies with internal characterisations.
I look forward to your Indian cinematic favourites, since my knowledge is no doubt limited. I would like some recommendations.
I agree with you on the ‘honorable mentions’, Marcus 🙂 Hope you get to watch ‘Rashomon’ and like it. Thanks for mentioning ‘Ran’. Kurosawa seems to have been a big fan of Shakespeare – I think ‘Throne of Blood’ is based on ‘Macbeth’. I haven’t heard of ‘The Offence’. It is interesting to know what Connery did 🙂 Armtwisting Albert Broccoli or whoever was the movie producer to back his own project must not have been easy. I will look for the DVD and try to watch it soon. Thanks for telling me about it.
I will try to make the list of Indian movies soon.
I have a sort of top ten on my “About” page. It is very different from yours. I applied similar criteria and could come up with at least ten other best of lists.
Some of thse you mention have been reviewed or could be reviewed on my war movie blog. There are a few I find interesting and hadn’t heard of before, thanks for that.
My actual Top 10 (some will always be on it) looks like this
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Portrait of a Lady
The Piano
Lost Highway
Croughing Tiger
In the Mood for Love
The Fabulous Baker Boys
White Oleander
Little Children
The Virgin Suicides
Casablanca used to be on my list but I’ve seen it too often by now. It may be on it again in the future.
Like Marcus, I’m looking forward to your Indian list. I know nothing of Indian movies.
Wonderful list, Caroline! From your list I have seen only ‘The Piano’ and ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ (I hope that is what you meant). I have heard of ‘In the Mood for Love’, ‘White Oleander’ and ‘The Virgin Suicides’. Is ‘Portrait of a Lady’ based on the Henry James novel?
Thanks for sharing your top-10 list. I can’t wait to watch the movies on your list!
Too bad ‘Casablanca’ moved out of your list. But hope it makes a comeback sometime 🙂
I will make my top-10 Indian movie list soon.
I am off to read your favourite movies list in your ‘About’ page.
Very good list! I love Roshamon, great inclusion. I also like a lot of the films that made your “almost” section.
Guess I better get crackin’.
Glad to know that you liked the list, Steve! Nice to know that you too like ‘Rashomon’. Nice to know that you liked the ‘almost’ section too 🙂 Can’t wait to see your top-10 list!
Vishy,
Your favorites list caught my attention after initially reading your book review link re. Grigory Perlman.
I wanted especially to know if Stanley Kubrick would make your list. The film 2001 : A Space Odyssey, in collaboration with Aurther C. Clarke who wrote the book which was realeased ‘after’ ( and as a consequence few people have read it) introduced me to a mathematical puzzle I am trying to better understand. The Monolith, or star gate in the film is somewhat of a mystery and the film, stunning and brilliant as it is overall, is ‘incomprehensible’. In order to better understand the film I finally read A.C. Clark’s book by the same name, that reading was 20 years after I had first seen the film. I had a reason and wanted in particular to know if the book had any information pertaining to the dimensions of the monolith…what I found was more than I could have imagined. It was clearly defined as a ratio, its metaphoric use by Kubrick as a device in cinema became much clearer as mathematics of the Monolith. It seems, by Clark’s own account, that Kubrick was also mathematiclally brilliant. Unfortunately a number of contradictions have emerged in this puzzle and both Kubrick and Clarke are both deceased. It did not take long to exhaust all the obvious leads I could find over a period of years but I think there was someone else outside of Stanley and Aurther who was also aware of the puzzle that I seem to have inherited. The associated history, as I have come to understand it, goes back thousands of years.
If this is of interest to you, and I hope you might know of something or someone, I would be forever graateful.
Respectfully
Thanks for stopping by, Bradley. Glad to know that you liked my review of Masha Gessen’s book on Grigory Perelman. Nice to also know that you liked looking through my favourite movies list. I was really disappointed that I couldn’t find place for a Stanley Kubrick movie on my list. My favourite Stanley Kubrick though is not ‘2001 : A Space Odyssey’ though, but ‘Paths of Glory’. I would say that ‘Killer’s Kiss’ is my second favourite Kubrick movie.
It was interesting to read your experiences on ‘2001 : A Space Odyssey’. I did the exact thing you did – watched the movie first, didn’t understand much, then went and read the novel and then went back and watched the movie again. I don’t know how the audience reacted to the movie when it first came out, because things are not obvious in the movie, unless one has the background of the novel. It was interesting to know about the mathematical puzzle regarding the monolith depicted in the movie / novel. I will do some research on it. Thanks for mentioning it.
Interesting list, quite a mix.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – loved it! Whenever I hear that song from the movie, I think of Clint Eastwood standing in the middle of the road, ready to shoot.
Casablanca was ok but I’m not a great fan.
The rest I haven’t seen so I can’t comment.
My favorite movie is The Lord of the Rings, followed by The Gladiator and Onegin (beautiful, dramatic love story set in Russia – starring Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler. I love the costumes, the actors, the story, everything!).
Movies based on legends (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow), magic (Harry Potter), horror/ghost stories (The Woman in Black), vampires (Van Helsing, The Queen of The Damned, True Blood), classics (Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre), are high on my list. Not sure if I could limit myself to ten choices though.
Glad to know that you liked the list, Delia. The music from ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ is so haunting, isn’t it?
It is wonderful to know that your favourite movie is ‘The Lord of the Rings’. I liked it very much too. I also liked ‘The Gladiator’ very much. Is ‘Onegin’ based on the Pushkin book? I liked ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ too. I haven’t seen ‘Van Helsing’ but have seen Coppola’s version of ‘Dracula’ where Van Helsing is a character. I have also not seen ‘Queen of the Damned’ but have seen ‘Interview with a Vampire’ which is also based on an Anne Rice novel. I want to watch the movie version of ‘Wuthering Heights’! Thanks for sharing your favourite movies list!
Apparently Onegin has something to do with Pushkin, though I had no idea at the time. Wiki tells me Onegin is actually a “novel in verse”. I learned something new today. 🙂
Van Helsing is a good action packed vampire movie. I think that’s when I started noticing Hugh Jackman. He played the main character 🙂
Wuthering Heights – the movie – is good but of course the book is much better.
Nice to know that. I want to watch ‘Onegin’ now! I haven’t seen ‘Van Helsing’. Hope to watch it sometime. I first watched Hugh Jackman in the Woody Allen movie ‘Scoop’ and fell in love with him.
I forgot to mention “La Vita e Bella”. That was a great movie! Have you seen it?
Yes, I have seen ‘La Vita e Bella’ and I love it! I can’t believe that I missed it out from my list! It is one of the most beautiful movies I have seen. The way Roberto Benigni builds a beautiful game for his son in the second part of the movie to make reality bearable is wonderful. I cried during the last scene when the boy says – “We got a thousand points and we won the game! Daddy and me came in first and now we won the real tank! We won! We won!”
oh good list mine of top of my head
wings of desire
Amelia
the cat returns
the third man
brief encounter
breathless
Anne hall
breakfast club
dead poets society
Cinema pardiso
that is for today may be different tomorrow ,all the best stu
Wonderful list, Stu! I can’t believe that I left out ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ – it is so wonderful! I haven’t seen ‘Annie Hall’ yet. I want to watch it sometime. I also want to watch ‘Cinema Paradiso’. Thanks for sharing your favourite movies list 🙂
Hi Vishy, I like the list! It’s so hard compiling lists – your list of films you left out was longer than the ones you put in 🙂 I haven’t seen all the ones you refer to, although I do remember Burnt by the Sun and it was really powerful! I’d have to think a long time before coming up with my own top 10, but off the top of my head a good film I saw last year some time was Waltz with Bashir, an animated documentary about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and also about the nature of memory. I liked how they combined two very different forms, documentary and cartoon, and made something really fresh and innovative out of it.
Hi Andrew, Yes I think I might love more, the films that I left out 🙂 Glad to know that you have seen ‘Burnt by the Sun’ and liked it. That was the first Nikita Mikhalkov film I saw and it has left a lasting memory in my heart. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on ‘Waltz with Bashir’. I have heard of this film, but I haven’t watched it. After reading your thoughts on it, I want to watch it now. Would love to see your favourite film list, sometime 🙂
Great list Vishy! i haven’t watched any from your list! But I do remember seeing a few from your Honorable Mentions list. Before Sunrise was also beautiful – did you see the sequel to that? There are a few that I have really loved over the years – not all of them are classics, but sometimes I love a movie because of what it meant to me at that time. I guess I am a bit more personal in that sense – and later the movie may sound so rotten. But I remember the moments of the movie and not the movie itself. Does this make sense? 😉
Glad to know that you liked the list, Soul. Glad to know that you liked ‘Before Sunrise’. I saw the sequel ‘Before Sunset’ too and liked it very much too. I can understand what you said – sometimes our mood and our thoughts influence the kind of movie we like. It has happened to me too. When I watch those movies again, they take me back in time to that particular moment and I feel nostalgic.
What a wonderful list, Vishy, but how difficult to decide on those ten! 🙂 I love Before sunrise, too, and also Amèlie of course, and a lot more of your choices, good one! 🙂
Not a top 10 per se, just 10 films I really like, that come to mind right now:
My Girl Friday
Harvey
The Virgin Suicides
Amèlie
Saving Grace
Gegen die Wand
I’m a cyborg but that’s ok
Delicatessen (the French one, not the Danish movie)
The Big Lebowski
Los Abrazos rotos
So many other ones, in 5 minutes my list might look completely different 😀
Nice to know that you liked the list, Bina 🙂 ‘Before Sunrise’ and ‘Amelie’ are wonderful, aren’t they?
Thanks for sharing your top-10 list! You have told me about ‘The Virgin Suicides’ before and I have seen ‘Amelie’ and I have heard of ‘The Big Lebowski’, but the other movies are new to me. ‘I’m a cyborg but that’s ok’ is a very delightful title 🙂 I will add all these movies to my ‘To be seen’ list.
whoa…apart from Godfather, Good bad and ugly and Pulp Fiction, I haven’t seen any of these movies. Loved all of them though. But I guess, I am not really a moviephile (if that is a word), since I can’t think of even one memorable movie right now.
Nice to know that you have seen and liked ‘The Godfather’, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’. They are all wonderful movies. I hope you can make your top-10 favourite movies list sometime and share it with us, your readers 🙂
good selection vishy! in my view greatest movies are those which has given that push to cinema which has propelled it to move forward. ray’s pather panchali, welles- kane, truffaut- breathless, peckinpah- wild bunch etc etc…. in recent times Wai, Zhimou (raise the red lantern), park- oldboy, takeshi miike in the horror genre, or the korean love stories….ha there is so much!
Vishy,
I just have discovered Your blog and want to thank You for it.