My 10 Favorite Films

I don’t know why I didn’t post this a long time ago, but here’s the list of my ten favorite films (today’s favorites, at any rate).  I’ve shown this list and others like it to friends who are fellow cinephiles, and most of them fault my inventory for including only canonized classic art films.  Couldn’t I include, they ask, at least one disreputable title?  How about Santa Claus Conquers the Martians? How about Women’s Prison Massacre?  Or, at the very least, Ernest Goes to Splash Mountain?  Sorry.  Maybe I’ll do a follow-up of favorite sleazies sometime, but art films, believe it or not, are the kind of movie I like best.  So, for right now, here is my list of faves — art-house-heavy, un-cool, and drowse-inducing though the roll call may be — these are the ten titles that I get the most out of:

10. THE OTHER FRANCISCO

Directed by Sergio Giral (Cuba, 1975)

In his highly original film, Afro-Cuban director Giral adapts a 19th-century Cuban anti-slavery novel, criticizes its middle-class limitations, and then goes on to envision a radical retelling. Where the novel ended with a slave’s suicide, Giral’s version ends with a slave uprising. Inspiring.

9. LA STRADA

Directed by Federico Fellini (Italy, 1954)

This story of a mentally underdeveloped waif tormented by a boorish brute is outstanding for its wondrous and understated observations on the nuances of rustic life in post-war Italy. Fellini’s early neo-realist film barely hints at the near-hallucinatory fever dreams that he would become famous for later in his career.

8. CHUNGKING EXPRESS

Directed by Wong Kar-Wai (Hong Kong, 1994)

Wong defies audience expectations and captures the frenetic atmosphere of pre-hand-over Hong Kong in this film about people trying (and not quite succeeding) to find romance in the big city. Special kudos for the audacity of putting two unrelated stories in the same movie. Wong’s companion piece Fallen Angels (1995) is worth checking out as well.

7. A HARD DAY’S NIGHT

Directed by Richard Lester (UK/USA, 1964)

The energy and vitality of the 1960s New Wave + the rhythms and irreverence of the Beatles = a cinematic masterpiece.  Although we tend to think of the rock-’n-roll ’60s in psychedelic color, this film’s black-and-white cinematography lends it a Chaplinesque timelessness.

6. DR. STRANGELOVE ... OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB

Directed by Stanley Kubrick (USA/UK, 1964)

With alternating horror and hilarity — and a cunningly clinical camera — Kubrick gets us to laugh at the unthinkable: nuclear holocaust. The performances by Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, and Slim Pickens remain the highlight of their careers.

5. RASHÔMON

Directed by Akira Kurosawa (Japan, 1950)

Kurosawa’s mesmerizing story of four conflicting accounts of the same crime encourages the viewers to question their own sense of truth and the passage of time. Toshirô Mifune’s feral turn as the bandit remains one of the cinema’s all-time great performances.

4. THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer (France, 1928)

A minimalist interpretation of the trial and execution of Joan of Arc, Dreyer’s film makes up in emotional intensity what it eschews in conventional big-scale spectacle. Never before or since has the fissured human face appeared so riveting on the screen.

3. THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES

Directed by Sergei Paradzhanov (USSR, 1969)

Not a “narrative” movie in the traditional sense of the word, Paradzhanov’s film is instead a kaleidoscopic visual meditation on the life of the 18th-century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova. Upon completion, it was cut and banned by the Soviet authorities for its narrative non-conformity and implicit Armenian nationalism.

2.  L’AVVENTURA

Directed by Michaelangelo Antonioni (Italy/France, 1960)

Jeered at its first screening, director Antonioni’s film isn’t interested in what happens in the story.  Rather, the director uses his watchful camera to reveal his uncommunicative characters and expose their alienating environments.  The story isn’t concerned with external actions but with the audience’s apprehensions of the characters’ unstated internal complexities.  Antonioni reinvents the language of cinema. 

1. CITIZEN KANE

Directed by Orson Welles (USA, 1941)

In his freshman film, theatre director Welles boldly broke the conventional bounds of Hollywood narrative to tell the story of a newspaper tycoon with uncommon depth and complexity. The intricate story line is matched by the intricate visuals of master cinematographer Gregg Toland. A milestone in the annals of cinema.