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.)