Sol

Australia
Sol Film Viewings
Avid collector and reviewer of rare and hard-to-find films.

When asked to compile a list such as this, I find myself pulling in three directions. On one hand, I find myself wanting to list the 50 films that I truly consider to be the greatest ever made. On another hand, I know that this is a poll, and therefore I feel compelled to vote for some films that I may not think as highly of, but which I wish to see make the cut, and which I know will stand a chance of making the cut. On yet a third hand, I am tempted to turn this into an exercise for listing as many obscure and rarely seen films as possible at the hope that listing them may provoke others into seeking them out. My 50 films list is therefore comprised of all three approaches.

1. Fanny and Alexander (1982) .. Ingmar Bergman
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) .. Stanley Kubrick
3. The Last Picture Show (1971) .. Peter Bogdanovich
4. Schindler's List (1993) .. Steven Spielberg
5. Rear Window (1954) .. Alfred Hitchcock
6. Citizen Kane (1941) .. Orson Welles
7. Vertigo (1958) .. Alfred Hitchcock
8. Modern Times (1936) .. Charles Chaplin
9. Don't Look Now (1973) .. Nicolas Roeg
10. A Clockwork Orange (1971) .. Stanley Kubrick
11. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) .. Mike Nichols
12. The Night of the Hunter (1955) .. Charles Laughton
13. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) .. Woody Allen
14. Blow Up (1966) .. Michelangelo Antonioni
15. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) .. Stanley Kubrick
16. The Trial (1962) .. Orson Welles
17. Sunset Boulevard (1950) .. Billy Wilder
18. Amadeus (1984) .. Milos Forman
19. Manhattan (1979) .. Woody Allen
20. On the Waterfront (1954) .. Elia Kazan
21. M (1931) .. Fritz Lang
22. Persona (1966) .. Ingmar Bergman
23. The Conformist (1970) .. Bernardo Bertolucci
24. The Conversation (1974) .. Francis Ford Coppola
25. Zelig (1983) .. Woody Allen
26. 3 Women (1977) .. Robert Altman
27. The Body Snatcher (1945) .. Robert Wise
28. Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) .. Bryan Forbes
29. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) .. Amy Heckerling
30. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) .. Elio Petri
31. The Godfather (1972) .. Francis Ford Coppola
32. The Third Man (1949) .. Carol Reed
33. La Strada (1954) .. Federico Fellini
34. Last Summer (1969) .. Frank Perry
35. Safe (1995) .. Todd Haynes
36. Contempt (1963) .. Jean-Luc Godard
37. Taxi Driver (1976) .. Martin Scorsese
38. Tokyo Story (1953) .. Yasujiro Ozu
39. Cries and Whispers (1972) .. Ingmar Bergman
40. Midnight Cowboy (1969) .. John Schlesinger
41. Onibaba (1964) .. Kaneto Shindô
42. The Quiet Earth (1985) .. Geoff Murphy
43. Cria Cuervos (1976) .. Carlos Saura
44. Hidden (2005) .. Michael Haneke
45. The Crowd (1928) .. King Vidor
46. The Swimmer (1968) .. Frank Perry
47. High School (1968) .. Frederick Wiseman
48. Wise Blood (1979) .. John Huston
49. The Face of Another (1966) .. Hiroshi Teshigahara
50. Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) .. Alain Resnais