Joe

UK
Film Student

Composing a list of 'Greatest' or 'Favourite' films is always difficult, and no list ever seems to be perfect. With that in mind, I have not even attempted to achieve perfection with this list as that would be futile. Instead, here are the films I feel are deserving- some will be the usual, established classics such as the Godfather and Casablanca, some lesser appreciated gems like Mouchette and Lost in Translation, and even the odd almost unheard of film (I doubt many will be familiar with The Boys- a powerful courtroom drama- which is exactly why I've included it).

Obviously it is hard to leave out some of my favourites (I left out a few Hitchcock, Wilder and Coen Bros titles due to the fact that their work was already represented more than once). The only director who achieves 3 titles on the list is Dreyer, for the simple reason that those three films are three of the greatest have ever seen (which is, after all, what this is all about)

Hopefully my list has a fair range of films from different decades, and lives up to the high standards of my fellow cinephiles. Of course, there are hundreds of other titles I wish I could have included, and only being 19 years of age means my film taste is constantly developing as I watch more, but hopefully these choices will satisfy for now.

  1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) .. Stanley Kubrick
  2. Lost in Translation (2003) .. Sofia Coppola
  3. Taxi Driver (1976) .. Martin Scorsese
  4. Day of Wrath (1943) .. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  5. Psycho (1960) .. Alfred Hitchcock
  6. Casablanca (1942) .. Michael Curtiz
  7. Double Indemnity (1944) .. Billy Wilder
  8. Inherit the Wind (1960) .. Stanley Kramer
  9. Mouchette (1967) .. Robert Bresson
  10. Rear Window (1954) .. Alfred Hitchcock
  11. The Night of the Hunter (1955) .. Charles Laughton
  12. Ordet (1955) .. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  13. 12 Angry Men (1957) .. Sidney Lumet
  14. In the Mood for Love (2000) .. Wong Kar Wai
  15. No Country for Old Men (2007) .. The Coen Brothers
  16. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) .. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  17. The Godfather (1972) .. Francis Ford Coppola
  18. The Big Lebowski (1998) .. The Coen Brothers
  19. Stagecoach (1939) .. John Ford
  20. Annie Hall (1977) .. Woody Allen
  21. Chinatown (1974) .. Roman Polanski
  22. The Apartment (1960) .. Billy Wilder
  23. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) .. Milos Forman
  24. Grave of the Fireflies (1988) .. Isao Takahata
  25. Limelight (1952) .. Charlie Chaplin
  26. High Plains Drifter (1973) .. Clint Eastwood
  27. Mulholland Dr. (2001) .. David Lynch
  28. Withnail & I (1987) .. Bruce Robinson
  29. Apocalypse Now (1979) .. Francis Ford Coppola
  30. The Seventh Seal (1957) .. Ingmar Bergman
  31. The Long Day Closes (1992) .. Terence Davies
  32. Anatomy of a Murder (1959) .. Otto Preminger
  33. Koyaanisqatsi (1982) .. Godfrey Reggio
  34. Bringing Up Baby (1938) .. Howard Hawks
  35. Solaris (1972) .. Andrei Tarkovsky
  36. The Blue Angel (1930) .. Josef Von Sternberg
  37. Cool Hand Luke (1967) .. Stuart Rosenberg
  38. Alphaville (1965) .. Jean-Luc Godard
  39. La Jetée (1962) .. Chris Marker
  40. Blade Runner (1982) .. Ridley Scott
  41. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) .. Frank Capra
  42. The Awful Truth (1937) .. Leo McCarey
  43. The Boys (1962) .. Sidney J. Furie
  44. The Conformist (1970) .. Bernardo Bertolucci
  45. Sunrise (1927) .. F.W. Murnau
  46. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) .. Elia Kazan
  47. Rashomon (1950) .. Akira Kurosawa
  48. Man with a Movie Camera (1929) .. Dziga Vertov
  49. Naked (1993) .. Mike Leigh
  50. Harvey (1950) .. Henry Koster

(PS. My last choice 'Harvey' may be far from a perfect film, but James Stewart's performance is fantastic, combining with a brilliant concept to make this a personal favourite, as well as something of a classic.)

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