Haha. Done.
1. Stalker - Andrei Tarkovsky
It's not only a deep and solemn film that talks about human nature, desires, weaknesses and desperate need for a guide (such as religion is), but also a visually wonderful film, an SF with purposefully no special effects. IT's directed at a very slow pace, there's almost never a fast movement in it, but there is a peculiar dinamism achieved by fast exchanges between the first and second plane.
As my old tutor in film club would say, "Compared to it, 2001 is a child's game".
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick
2001 is a very special film in many ways: the scope of human history represented, the visual spectacle, the drama in which we actually feel for the killer-computer more than for human characters, the complexity of ideas - like I said somewhere in this thread, many will try to explain the last scenes in the film, while the intention of the scene is to represent something ultimately non-verbal, so one can simply sit and plunge into images, instead of trying to explain them.
But I think another important thing is what film represents: a sort of rite passage into world of serious films, a cultural milestone, something that one has to experience at least once in his life.
3. Dead Man - Jim Jarmusch
One of criteriums for aranging films on the list was how complex themes of the film were. Dead Man is so close to the top is because it's another one of those non-verbal films whose theme you have to feel, but not explain. Plus, silent black/white scenes in which Johnny Depp dies while floating down the river, while Neil Young's guitar cries and mourns in the background - must be one of the strongest film experience.
4. Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie - Luis Bunuel
Many of the best directors tried obsessively to transfer dreams to film, but Bunuel was probably the most accurate. "Discrete charm" - it's as if he's placed a camera inside your dream, recording stories that follow that strange logic of dreams where scenes just melt into each other and where your daily fears come into plain sight.
5. The Graduate - Mike Nichols
I think of "The Graduate" as the best film about topics of rebelion and non-comformism. While "One flew over Cookoo's nest" might appeal to political rebels and "Easy rider" might appear to naively romantic, "The Graduate" is a film for all of us, average men, non-conformism inside the middle class. It's a film that helped me figure some things out back when I was 20-21 and had some similar problems as the main character (regarding decisions about your future, not regaring dating the older women).
It's also a wall-to-wall perfection of film language. Mike Nichols spent entire life trying to repeat such perfection, never coming even close (though "Wolf" was a fair try).
6. Hair - Milos Forman
Generally I don't like musicals, but this is one example where, I think, music is the integral part of the film and actually good. Changing the point of the original play (which was a pure hirry romp), it's an ironic look at 60ies from the viewpoint of 70ies. One thing that play didn't have was the tragic twist at the end of the film, set to performance of "Let the sunshine in", the tension during the prolongued intro to the film, the abrupt tragedy after the film full of celebration of life - to me it's the strongest anti-war message.
To me, Forman is the director with the highest rate of success - I've seen almost all of his films, and there's just one that isn't excellent.
7. Rashomon - Akira Kurosawa
It may be a bit prosaic choice of Kurosawa's film, but the theme about relativity of experience is something that's very close to me, personally.
8. Solyaris aka Solaris - Andrei Tarkovsky
Not much that I care to say except that it's another great SF film by Tarkowsky, again talking about topics of human imperfection, though in much more general terms than Stalker. Strangely though it's full of special effects, it's less visually striking than Stalker, and the most impressive scenes are the ones on earth - specially the last one, which many people miss because at that point they think the film is finished - kind of sad because that final scene changes the whole perception of the film.
9. A Clockwork Orange - Stanley Kubrick
It was really sad that I had to cut out "Dr.Strangelove" and "Lolita", but choosing between these tree, I picked "Clockwork orange" because it's topic of human rights and dignity is much larger than those two. It's probably a prime example of violence and sex being neccesary part of the film: If Alex was and less violent and heartless, if there was a little chance of a (normal) viewer identifying with him, the point of the film would would be entirely different.
10. Once Upon a Time in America - Sergio Leone
As far as the epic films go, this is the end and the beginning for me. I don't care much for American western films, or for historical blockbusters the likes of "Ben Hur", or for much of the things that have "epic" tacked onto them. But Leone's epics are the different thing: it's the way he twists reality; when two cowboys have a shotdown, the distance between them seems miles long; his characters are really larger than life, and his tragic scenes seem to last forever, but never too long.
11. Crimes and Misdemeanors - Woody Allen
Choosing one Woody Allen's film as best was difficult because his films are so closely-knitted into one life work, but I think that Crimes and Misdemeanors was one of the most complex, examination of ideas of justice, and his darkest film - not as consciously dramatic as "Another woman" or "Interiors", but using comedy to accentuate dark themes and pessimistic outlook.
12. Double life of Veronica - Krzysztof Kieslowski
It's a very strange film, more poetic and less narrative, and definitely takes repeated watching just to figure out what the plot is. Usually it's described as a film about two women that have exactly the same lives apart from one decision... but it's not a film about how one decision can change your life, that element is pretty much marginal. The film is, well, about feeling that you're not alone and that there are invisible connections among people, so in this film you have two women, one Polish, the other French, somehow connected, feeling each other's presence, happiness and suffer, but not knowing consciously that the other one exists. Rather poetic idea.
Incidentally the film has some of the prettiest erotic scenes even filmed.
13. Mulholland Drive - David Lynch
I always appreciate Lynch for being as unique as he is, even though I can't stand a lot of his films ("Wild at heart", "Fire walk with me"...) Of course he has other great films, but to me Mullholland Drive is the best, one that he managed to make into a wonderful puzzle that you have to solve on your own (it's just not the same if you read it on internet) but also an alegory about fame, ambicion, Hollywood, how we, ordinary people see it, as oposed to how it really is... It is telling that for a long time, I wasn't aware that film lasts 2+ hours.
Lynch has always been a master of horror to me, making you fear even when he's not actually showing anything scary. Last few minutes of this film must be the scariest piece of film that I've ever seen. I tried a little test: replaying the ending of the film at various times. Each time I would invariably feel shivers down my spine.
14. Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain or The City of Lost Children (take your pick) - Jean Jeunet
I somehow find these two films inseparable, or interchangeable. They're both products of the same poetics, but one is bizzare, dark and confusing, while the other is bright and life-affirming. So I could never decide which film was actually better, and it depended largely on my current mood: I see them as two sides of a coin.
I think that Jeunet is the greatest director currently, as far as striking imagery, fantasy and quirky film language goes (in my opinion, topping the likes of Tim Burton or brothers Coen). As shown in Amelie, he is also caparle of making underlying subtext and firm psychological basis. I am a bit concerned though, about where his career will go in future (like any dreamer, he's very unreliable).
15. Fahrenheit 451 - Francois Truffaut
Sadly neglected Truffault's film, it's a perfection in film language, with many of those iconic scenes of book-burining. It is luckily nothing like the book - the book is yet another Orwellian story like hundreds of others. But the film is about something larger: the story in the film is intercut with multiple shots of books burning, we see printed pages in close cut and can reckognize many famous paragraphs; in a way, it's a selection of literature through human history, all of them in flames. The film becomes the story about importance of written word in human society.
16. Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
I can never see this film as anything else but unappreciated masterpiece. I don't think that the film was made to create a lot of laughs, I don't think that at that point, making hillarity was very important to Pythons. I remember watching a film with a lot of frends in dorm, and I was surprised at how various people were offended by different parts of the film. While I could barely stand Mr Creosote's scene, other people laughed all through it, but were completely grossed out by liver donor scene, which to me isn't too bad - and other people yet were appauled by sex education class, etc. Somehow, it was interesting to realise how a simple thing as shock can be so relative.
17. Pulp Fiction - Quentin Tarantino
I think of it as a defining film of 90ies. I relate it to the work of the band Ween, in that it marks a point where culture folds and starts consciously rewriting itself. It's like if the world realised that there is no more new ideas and that we must start rewriting new ones with cynical twist, trying to look at ourselves through what we create and enjoy.
But apart from being a sort of sociological milestone, it's a wonderful film, epic panorama of gangster genre, and has some very impressive film language.
18. Night on Earth - Jim Jarmusch
Each of these five stories is wonderful in it's way (though others will often be eclipsed by Benigni's bravure) and each story tells about the city it's happening in, by facing two opposities that exist in the same place. But as a whole, the film is about how life never stops and how it's everywhere: people live and meet each other at any time of the day, in any place on the earth.
19. Sabirni centar - Goran Markovic
Goran Markovic is my favourite Serbian director, and this black comedy translates as "Concentration camp". It's one film that I can never watch without crying (yes I admit) at least once.
In the film, one old professor dies and goes to the other world, where he meets his old, deceased friends and his wife who died young and is consequently still young while he's old. However, he turns out to be not quite dead, so he suddenly returns back on this world. However, while dead he found out many horrible secrets of his friends who are still alive and now sees them with a different eyes, realising how much of his life has been a lie.
But that's only scraping the surface of the film, it's one wonderful and very emotional alegory.
20. Nostalghia - Andrei Tarkovsky
Basically it's a film about home and immigration, about whether it's possible to live far from your roots - It's showing Tarkovsky's hope, after he's immigrated from Russia, that he can still function in the place that he doesn't consider home. What I appreciate the most about this film is how it's whole visual style builds up to one final scene which represents the whole point of the film. And one thing about Tarkovsky's art in general, in every film he'd employ a different visual style, the one that would actually be a metaphore of the theme of the film: this film is all in long, horizontal, panoramic camera movements, which represent the theme of immigration and displacement.
And that actually brings me to why I think that Tarkovsky is the greatest director of all: because of how conscious and analytic his filmmaking was; his cinematic language was the most closely knitted to the film topic. To him, cinematic language was never just a mean to tell the story, but would always build up to the story to create something larger.
21. Mies vailla menneisyytta aka The Man Without a Past - Aki Kaurismäki
Kaurismaki has in recent years been one of my favourite directors; he makes low budget stories about ordinary people, and I think that his obsessive theme was finding human goodness in the most rough conditions. As far as that theme goes, this is probably the most succesful of his films. Though it was very difficult to choose between this and other films such as "Take care of your scarf, Tatiana" or "Ariel".
22. Il Decameron - Pier Paolo Pasolini
You'll either hate or adore Passolini's films: he has probably the most uncompromizing realism as far as medieval films go, dirty streets smeared with mud and excrement, stupid and scheming people and comedy and tragedy appearing together. Decameron is probably his most even, and actually most watchable films (I wouldn't reccomend "Cantenbury tales" or "1001 nights" - not to mention "Salo" - to just about anyone. It's also said to be the best film version of Decameron.
23. Dogma - Kevin Smith
"Dogma" is, for me, the best film with religious themes. While I'm not that much religious, I am very spiritual, and finding a right balance between my religious upbringing and my common sence was very important to me. And this film helped me a lot in that matter, presenting a modern, reasonable and convincing interpretation of Christianity (of course, I didn't literally accept ideas from this film, it just helped me steer into right direction in thinking).
It's a very complex film, I've seen numerous discussions just about what Alanis Morisetter's casting symbolizes. It's hard to believe that the same person would direct such simple-minded films as, say, "Jersey girl". It's also magnificent film language, scenes in front of the cathedral are some of the most impressing ever. When I saw the film for the first time, I literally walked out of the cinema with my knees shaking.
24. WR: Misterije Organizma - Dusan Makavejev
Or in other words, "Wilhelm Reich: Mysteries of organism". Makavejev is probably the most acclaimed Sebian director. His film "Ljubavni slucaj ili tragedija sluzbenice PTTA" contains that iconic scene of a nude woman lying on the couch face down, with a black cat sitting on her butt; Makavejev based his style on subverting Eisenstein's montage ideas, by intercutting images to produce parodic, silly, or just absurd effect.
WR might not be his best film, but it is certainly the most outrageous. It plays along as a documentary about controversial scientist Wilhelm Reich, but actually faces his ideas with Yugoslavian brand of communism, mocking Reich, communism and capitalism, all at the same time. Film was censored in many countries, and even banned as 'pornographic' in England. Possibly because of the scene of a man having a cast of his erected penis made.
Basically, the film is so outrageous and violently funny that, as I sometimes say: it's not just a film - it's experience.
25. Hi, mom - Brian De Palma
De Palma is now a generic hollywood director, but once, he was stylish and subversive. I had to choose between this film and "Carry", which I'm very fold of because of about 10 minutes of pure horror that always gets me... Well I've chosen this one simply because it's quirky, unique, because it demonstrates Palma's brand of experimental film language, and because it tells a story of a man who goes to great lengths just to appear once on tv.
26. La Nuit Americaine aka Day for Night - Francois Truffaut
A film about making of the film - when I was attending the film club, our moderator showed this film to us because he thought it would teach us everything about realistic conditions of filmmaking in just three hours. He was right. But it's also a beautiful and very poetic film.
27. Three Colors: White - Krzysztof Kieslowski
I think of Kieslowsky as the greatest poet of all film directors. In his films, people will sometimes just take a moment to sit down, for no reason. A medics car with rotating lights will pass in the background, also for no reason and in no relation to the story. Things will happen just because they somehow feel right.
But he also has tightly knitted plots with psychological background. In this film, a Polak marries a French woman and moves to France. Being a Polak, he yarns for his homeland so much that he becomes impotent - and being a French, she can't be with an impotent man no matter how much she loves him. In every frame of this film, while colour dominates (just like in "Blue..." and "Red..." their corresponding colours dominate). When he arrives back to Poland, smuggled in a big suitcase, it is snowing. First thing back in Poland, he gets beaten up, but he's still happy... well in short, this film has so much beauty in it that it's futile to try to describe it.
28. Der Himmel Uber Berlin aka Wings of Desire - Wim Wenders
It's an essay-film. Lengthy essays are spoken by main characters on background of beautifully shot Berlin and main characters-angels floating above it. I think that of all the films named here, it is the most slow-paced and the most challenging.
Oh, it also has a lot of Nick Cave music.
29. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Terry Gilliam
When I saw the film, I thought that it was either the best or the worst film I ever saw. I found that many people have the same initial reaction. Like "WR: mysteries of organism", I think of it as not just a film, but an experience - see it because you'll never see anything like it again. On one hand, it's wall-to-wall halucinatory imagery, no modern special effects, all done in old-fashioned way, with simple camera, some lenses and costumes - and in that respect it's a celebration of cinematic language, showing that it can be much more effective than any CG animation available. On other hand, I think that it does the same ironic look at the original novel (and culture that spawned it) as Forman's "Hair" does to the play it's based on. Some of the most impressive things about hilms: we look at two main characters sympathetically all through the film - as two rascals laughing in the face of conformism; but in the near-horror scene with Ellen Barkin, we see them in a completely different light, from which point we can't sympathize anymore, they're just violent washouts for us; people full of big talk about important assignments and conspiracies - but it's all just a drug-induced paranoia.
I always thought that Serbial translation "Paranoia in Las Vegas" was very appropriate.
30. Dogville - Lars von Trier
When you're in your mid-twenties, you rarely see a film that totally changes your outlook at something. Dogville did this for me. People often see it as a moralizing, critical piece about America, but I think that the film deals with much larger things than that: about people in general, about how they deal with their moral views, how they see themselves and others, and actually how much can people really be accounted for their own actions. The film is filmed as a sort of stage play, with chalk-scenography, some props and sound effects. I think that this approach effectively lifts it from the level of actual, real and brings it to the level of symbolic. Therefore film talks about symbolic, general, and cannot be just a film about America.
One of the most important scenes to me is Paul Bethany's character's change: the entire film he's going against his village, being an uncomformist. This has put him in confusion: he can feel that the views of his family and frinds are wrong, but he cannot admit it to himself. The solution is to conform, and to subconsciously convince himself that to conform is right; psychology at work: he'd rather convince himself that he was wrong all along, than take the pressure from his society and live with the moral conflict.
31. Mediterraneo - Gabriele Salvatores
Holds a record of the film I watched the most times, probably. It's very watchable and very funny comedy, but it's also a film about differences between temperaments of west and east, of life approaches. Symbolic of the whole film is the scene where Greek native explains that greek coffee is drunk slow, without rush, while Italian expects his coffy quick, strong and right away, like espresso.
32. Week End - Jean-Luc Godard
My favourite Godard film. In a lot of places, it works like a political essay, but basically it's a bizzare, slightly SF story, a road movie happening in a society where people spend all their rage and frustration in cars on roads, massively crashing to each other, shooting at each other, etc. Film is said to have one of the largest set pieces to date, a large scenery of a rush hour, with random crash victims laying arong.
33. The Birds - Alfred Hitchcock
Birds, apart from being very scary, is a metaphore about vengenceful nature. This was a popular topic, many SF films incuding "King kong" and "Godzilla" were based on it, but none more effective and subtle than "Birds". The most striking thing about the film is it's mysterious nature, that no explanation is ever given, that there is no resolution, and that the film as a whole never needs explanation or resolution to work. I think that the ending such as it is, leaves you terrified long after the film is over.
34. Arizona Dream - Emir Kusturica
Kusturica made about five good films, and then became the worst and most tasteless thing that ever happened to Serbian film. But while he was still at it, he made one American film, apparently influenced by Jarmush, in which Johny Depp flees between two women, mother and daughter, and for the most of the film has a big celebration with two of them, in a big house and lasting for several days. The story is very disorienting, messy, during those two days people make love, fight, threaten each others with knives, try to fly or to commit suicide, and though I watched it several times I can't remember most of the plot. Yes, it's a mess, but it's a beautiful, meaningful mess; It's the best mess I've ever seen (after "Fear and Loathing", of course).
But if there was nothing but the first sequence of the film, in which an Eskimo falls through the cracking ice and is saved by his dogs - the film would be worth it.
35. Amarcord - Federico Fellini
Panoramic film about growing up, telling numerous anecdotes from a young man's life, regarding him, but mostly people who surround him. Beautiful, poetic, and incredibly funny. It's a film built out of nothing but nostalgy, and makes me nostalgic for things I've never seen before.
36. Smoke - Wong Kar Wai
A sort of epitome of American independent scene. I mean, it's very cheap, but excellently written (by no other than Paul Auster), so it's a kind of film where you put the camera in the corner, let it roll, and leave actors to tell their lines in whichever rhythm they feel - and it works. It could have been Clerks or any other dialogue-based independent film, but I think that this is the best one because the number of characters you meet and feel for is much larger than the number of people you actually see on screen: a film that exists through tales as much as through real events. The very last sequence is the one in which Harvey Keitel tells something that happened to him, and the whole time camera only shows Keitel, which we never notice because of the strength of his storytelling.
37. M - Fritz Lang
I don't know... the film can look simple today, and the final speech where the killer relativizes his crime is repeated multiple times later (on top of my head in Chaplin's "Mister Verdoux")... but the film is carried out on strength of one metaphorical image: a letter M printed in chalk on killer's coat; without his knowledge or will, he's marked, different, unable to live among ordinary people.
38. Jungfrukallan aka The Virgin Spring - Ingmar Bergman
Again, a bit arbitrary choice of Bergman's films, I probaby chose it because it's so often overshadowed by other Bergman's works (and was filmed back to back with "7th seal"). But it's so simple, and yet so brutal and striking.
39. Jerry Maguire - Cameron Crowe
Well Cameron Crowe is a wonderful director of ordinary things (even though Vanila Sky was awful) and his attention to detail is impressive. This is a film ruled by ordinary events and little details that make life. It's the only film where I see a character hitting a chandelier with his head - it's something that always happens to me, but film characters are above such ordinary events - unless they're important fro the plot, or done for slapstick.
40. Eraserhead - David Lynch
Well... one of it's kind, endemic piece of film. Completely irrational but also boldly looking straight at one's deepest subconscious fears. What specially impresses me is the world Lynch has built in this film, the whole little world that functions on it's own.
41. Rescuers - Disney
I had to choose something from Disney's catalogue because despite all apparent flaws and despite the disastrous influence Disney's brand of soppiness has had on animated film industry, Disney's production up to late 80ies has always been an epitome of good animation and film magic in general to me. "Rescuers" is one of my instant favourites, distinctive from other Disney's films in it's modern sensibilities: it was the first project started after Disney's death, a big trial for the studio but also an attempt to move toward more modern approach. Successful, I always liked the way it mimicked popular films of the time - miss Bianca was not far from Audrey Hapburn in "Charade" - and in general, it was all marked with grace, style and beauty.
42. Pleasantville - Gary Ross
The film had a very simple idea of using black and white/colour contrast as a metaphore for conservativism/forward looking. What is wonderful is that this premise gave filmmakers oportunity to impress us with constelations of bw/colour all through the film. Always, they would find a new way to use this idea, and to make us go "wow" once again.
43. Belle de jour - Luis Bunuel
One thing I love about this film is that it's often filed as erotic drama. Of course you'll never see more than Catherine Deneuve's bare back, but that was Bunuel, and today's filmmakers could take a lesson that you don't have to show a dozen of naked bodies piled one on other, to make a film about erotic topic.
What really makes this film "erotic" is that it's a film about erotic fantasies. Main character is a higher middle class woman who secretly works as a prostitute in order to satisfy her perverted sexual fantasies. Just like in "Descrete charm" Bunuel faithfull represented dreams, so he here represented fantasies that people are most often ashamed to admit. The most powerful thing about the film is how it makes a full circle, blurring the difference between reality and fantasy but also bringing new levels into psychology of the main character.
44. Monsoon Wedding - Mira Nair
At core a multicultural film. In style it's a mix between Hollywood and Bollywood, and the topic is suiting: a clash of cultures: modern, western way of life and traditional Indian values. But what is most impressive is that the film shows unusual ways how these two ways of life found a balance and actually function as something completely new.
45. Spiklenci slasti aka Conspirators of Pleasure - Jan Svankmajer
It's part live-action part-animated film. I can't exactly tell what the film is about, I could only say that it's another film about weird sexual fantasies, but it wouldn't nearly describe this wonderfully weird movie. Svankmajer is an influential animator, has made his versions of Alice in Wonderland and Faust, all uniquely bizzare... I prefere this film, perhaps because half of the film you're wathing amused, not knowing what's actually going on... partly because it's the most weird, unrestrained of his films.
46. Late Night Shopping - Saul Metzstein
It's a comedy about modern urban neurosis - what can I say? People living dead-end lives, trying to figure out what it is that they should do and how to fill their lives with some kind of meaning. Basically people stumbling around in the dark. It has some of the most impressive camerawork and wonderful use of soundtrack.
47. La Reine Margot aka Queen Margot - Patrice Chereau
Ultimately brutal representation of Bartholomeian night and it's consequences, wonderful and rich film. The massacre was shown near the beginning of the film and at that moment you think that they've shot their most impressive material too soon, but what happens later disaprooves that - the emotional pain that is much stronger than the physical, and personal tragedy that is somehow more tragic than the historical tragedy.
48. The Fearless Vampire Killers aka Vampire Ball - Roman Polanski
A film that is so grotesque that it almost looks like an animated movie. It's not a horror - scarier than vampires were the scenes of climbing on the castle walls, over the ambis... it's the grotesque that I like the most, the peculiar style of black humor that I've seen only in eastern-European films.
49. Monty Python's - Life of Brian
Asides from being viciously funny, it's a very serious religious movie. It's insisted that the movie doesn't talk directly about religion, but it does talk about the mass mentality that leads to blind faith, about things in human nature that cause religious conflicts. Often, I've found this film so knowledgeable about human nature, that it's status as a human comedy only undermines it. Monty Python was a group of very erudite intelectuals, and they weren't making films just to make you laugh.
50. Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari aka The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari - Robert Wiene
I think of it as a proof that silent films are still worth watching (believe it or not, I've met people who think the oposite). What is actually achieved in this film could never be achieved in a colour or sound movie. These are bizzare scenographies and nightmare-like world, and the fack that it's old, silent bw film, actually obscure just about enough for this world to start functioning. The film ends up to grotesque that it's, once again, like watching an animated film.
But the film is actually very important: dreamlike world wasn't made for kicks. It was the first film that actively tried to peak into human head, to represent drwams/fantasies/in general, a subjective view of reality.
the end.
As for why I choose "Kafka" as the worst movie? Well, it's not only pretentious and incompetently made, not only a shallow and stupid interpretation of great writer's work - it's also a black hole that sucks all the quality out of things that previously posessed it. It's something unhappy with it's own crappiness, that it will try to make everything around it equally crappy, to ruin not your childhood heroes, but everything you ever liked.
