Film lists,
film buffs, and movies outside
the lines.

LISTING HEAVILY
I have no Eric Rohmer film, nothing with Audrey Hepburn in it, only one Hitchcock, no Kurosawa, no Howard Hawks, not much film noir . . . . I've learned that when push really comes to shove my taste is old fogey Janus Series Art House, with a dash of Kael. I'll live with it. -- Les Phillips

Well, this should be easy! Just pick 40 films I find indispensable out of the 20,000 or so I've seen. -- Jim Beaver

This was hard. I think I made it harder for myself by deciding to cut out what was standard and then putting back in those standards that are often cited but not for all of the reasons or with all of the appreciation I think they deserve (e.g., Rashomon). I started with what came to mind. Cancelled out what I thought were givens. I then went through and cancelled out the duplicates in idea or representational style - films, that, even if brilliant, I couldn't justify as adding anything more to the canon in style, artistry, thematics, subject matter, treatment, or mood than others I had chosen. Finally, I chose between the well-regarded/remembered and those more likely to be overlooked. And then I just started cutting . . . .making sure to keep a hold of as many genres as I could legitimately defend. The concerned reader will note that what I did away with in the end most effectively was the romantic comedy (my heart aches for Roman Holiday), or any manifestation of sane and successful romance. I'm sure that means something. And I'm not sure I like it.
-- Shari L. Rosenblum

I tried really hard to stay away from the Canonical Important Films - they don't need my help to make the final cut. But then with The Godfather and Singin' In the Rain, I just couldn't help myself. -- Greg Sorenson

Alright, so I finally forced myself to assemble a list. And it's horrible. Incomplete? Yes. Inaccurate? Indeed. Indispensable? Hardly. The sad fact is that many films that I consider essential are missing. They are not absent for lack of room. Nor are they absent because, like The Decalogue or Looney Toons 1941-1946, they represent a half dozen plus films I'd like to pass off as one. Nothing so admirable as that. Rather, I could not bring myself to include them because, well, frankly, I haven't seen them. Some for lack of time. Others for lack of the film itself. And while that leaves me a lot of first viewings to look forward to, it also makes me feel a bit ill-at-ease when compiling my list of essentials (listmaking being a very serious business). But it's really better never to see them, isn't it? Then they never disappoint. They just remain your own perfect conceptions of films you've heard bits and pieces about and seem perfectly matched to your tastes.
-- Dave Vermillion

Dear God, what an exercise in frustration. I not only had to come up with an idiot-savant list, but it felt like choosing between friends to whittle it down. To save my sanity, I only chose movies I own, but even that wasn't much help. -- Nancy Loe

Well, somebody had to be the traditionalist - and of course, that would be me. My list ends up being the very "litany of landmarks in cinema history" that the original announcement damned with faint praise. But why not? We will each interpret the word "essential" as it suits us. Much of my interest in, and passion for, film expresses itself as an historical appreciation. Therefore, my idea of "essential" means those films that are historically important, i.e. the ones that have influenced the art of filmmaking itself in a big way. [Getting up on the soapbox.] And how, I wonder, can we really understand the essential in any art unless we appreciate the development of that art in the past, leading up to its current state? Can we truly claim insight into the present without making an effort to claim the past for ourselves? [Getting off the soapbox.] So the upshot of all this is that my list is heavily weighted towards films that are over forty years old. Too heavily weighted, I'm sure (only 3 pictures on the list made later than the 50s!), but with only forty slots to fill, I opted (mostly) for what I consider the films with the greatest impact on later films.
-- Chris Dashiell

No documentary or nonfiction on my list. No Altman, no Bergman, no Hitchcock, no Kurosawa. Why? Because they would swamp out the others and create a list of well over 100.
-- Anthony Peniston

I did not attempt to pick out the Greatest or Most Influential films of all time, for which I would be overwhelmingly underqualified anyway, nor is it a list where I consciously attempted to categorize the films in any representative way, either by genre or director. My list is also not a list of favorites, per se, although I tried that approach initially, finally giving it up as hopeless when I wound up with a 236-place tie for seventh. I therefore took an entirely different tack, trying to select films that have left a distinct impression on me or that I feel a unique personal connection to. These types of film lists reveal more about the "lister" than they do any of the films. Indeed, compiling this list has been a journey of self-discovery. For instance I found out that: 1) I'm partial to films that begin with the letter "A." 2) I like kids (on film, anyway). 3) I like Paris (on film, anyway). And with those two combined, you'd think Zero for Conduct would be a shoo-in. 4). I love Myrna Loy. But then, doesn't everyone?
-- Moné Peterson

Here's the problem as I see it: "greatest" isn't a very good word - it isn't really a predicate; it doesn't have much meaning. "The greatest" suggests that works of art are, in the phrase of Northrop Frye, "free, classless and urbane," that they somehow are above the contexts of culture; of time age, sex and circumstance of the viewer; and all those other relevancies. "Greatest" is a Romantic concept, yes? Change from "the greatest" to "the most important" and then you are stuck with breakthrough films: something by the Lumiere brothers, technical artistry, method acting.....So, what I used as a guide here was more "the 40 movies that gave me the greatest pleasure, were the most moving, the most thought provoking, or changed the way I see things -- the movies that had the most impact on me." So, in that way, this list reveals a sort of autobiography - me and the movies.
-- Jack Hailey

My four criteria: 1) I tried to avoid the standards. That was a personal decision on my part aimed at making it easier for me to focus on films I consider, to some extent, underrated. 2) I tried to focus on films that were either definitive or influential, either to me or to film in general. 3) I tried to focus on films that were, to some extent, accessible. While The Bride With White Hair may not be the best example of its genre, it gains points for being a more accessible point of entry into the genre. 4) I love them all.
-- Ed Owens

Dave Vermillion

The Last Laugh
(F.W. Murnau, 1924)
À Nous la Liberté
(René Clair, 1931)
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
The Little Fugitive
(Ray Ashley, Morris Engel & Ruth Orkin, 1953)
Ashes and Diamonds
(Andrzej Wajda, 1958)

Moné Peterson

The Adventures of
Robin Hood
(Michael Curtiz &
William Keighley, 1938)
The Decalogue
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)
The Gospel According
to St. Matthew
(Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
The Life and Death
of Colonel Blimp
(Michael Powell, 1943)
Sansho the Bailiff
(Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)

Nancy Loe

I Am a Fugitive
From a Chain Gang
(Mervyn LeRoy, 1932)
Libeled Lady
(Jack Conway, 1936)
Now, Voyager
(Irving Rapper, 1942)
Show People
(King Vidor, 1928)
Top Hat
(Mark Sandrich, 1935)

Catherine Lucy

Ben Hur (Fred Niblo, 1925)
Broken Blossoms
(D.W. Griffith, 1919)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren &
Alexander Hammid, 1943)
The Mystery of
the Leaping Fish
(John Emerson, 1916)
The Unknown
(Tod Browning, 1927)

Rolando Recometa

The Black Stallion
(Carroll Ballard, 1979)
Mean Streets
(Martin Scorsese, 1973)
Pixote
(Hector Babenco, 1981)
An Angel at my Table
(Jane Campion, 1990)
The Nun's Story
(Fred Zinnemann, 1959)

Jack Hailey

Mosaferan
(Bahram Beizai, 1992)
The Lady Eve
(Preston Sturges, 1941)
The Sorrow and the Pity
(Marcel Ophuls, 1971)
The Saragossa Manuscript
(Wojciech Has, 1965)
Horse Thief
(Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1986)

Pat Padua

Absolute Beginners
(Julien Temple, 1986)
Come and See
(Elem Klimov, 1985)
The Face Behind the Mask
(Robert Florey, 1941)
Love Me Tonight
(Rouben Mamoulian, 1932)
Playtime
(Jacques Tati, 1967)

Lisa Larkin

I Know Where I'm Going!
(Michael Powell, 1945)
Peking Opera Blues
(Tsui Hark, 1986)
The Stunt Man
(Richard Rush, 1980)
A Chinese Ghost Story
(Ching Siu-Tung, 1987)
Alice
(Jan Svankmajer, 1988)

Retta Lewis

Lone Star
(John Sayles,1995)
Z (Costa-Gavras, 1969)
The Day Of The Locust
(John Schlesinger, 1975)
Sweetie
(Jane Campion, 1990
Mona Lisa
(Neil Jordan, 1986)

NITRATE MEMORY
As a self-professed Film Snob my first instinct when I encounter a top 100 film list of any kind is to regard it with scepticism. Inevitably I'll find something wrong. In this case I've managed to rein in that instinct to some degree. It's the CineScene poll, after all, so it's got to be good. But if, kind readers with your marvelous lists, you will indulge me, I would like to point out that only 18 films out of the 100 were made in non-English speaking countries. That may sound OK to you, but in fact 6 of those are silent films. So we are left with 12 films total in the entire sound era that aren't in English. It looks like all my pedagogical efforts, in my Flicks column and otherwise, have gone for naught. It seems useless to reiterate that there are hundreds of good films from Europe, Asia, and other parts, that the French film heritage alone can take years to absorb, and that the price of isolation and xenophobia is ignorance and narrow-mindedness. But I reiterate anyway. All the time. Just for the hell of it.

Hand in hand with the avoidance of other film cultures, it seems, comes avoidance of the past. In the case of a readers poll of this kind, this is one of the factors tending towards what I like to think of as a statistical anomaly. There was no ballot. We expressly intended to allow people to pick any films they wanted for their lists. We did not ask for the films to be ranked - therefore each listing was one point. So, since the majority tends to have seen more films that are recent than those that are older, the statistical curve will tend heavily towards films of the last ten to fifteen years. However, our purpose in this poll was not only to compile a list of the films most beloved by a majority, but to also have the list express the idea of essential viewing - and in that case it was necessary to follow a formula which corrected the statistical curve while basing everything strictly on the numbers. Each decade was allowed a maximum of 13 films, with the quota filling up according to the films with most votes and a minimum of five votes required for a film to be eligible. Tie-breakers were decided by the votes of five judges on the staff. The results satisfy both requirements - all the big vote getters are on the list, as anyone who is aware of the George Lucas franchise can see, while at the same time there was a relative balance across the timeline. Without that formula, the raw data gives us about one out of four of the top 100 films dated sometime in the last 12 years. That may be a popular choice, but it's not a film buff choice.

I've had fun putting this issue together. Being surrounded by all these great films feels sort of like being with all my family and friends at the same time. It's a good feeling. I hope you've enjoyed this special issue. Now, please, go to the video store and rent some of 'em.
-- Chris Dashiell

Shari L. Rosenblum

Brief Encounter
(David Lean, 1946)
The Earrings
of Madame De...
(Max Ophuls, 1953)
42nd Street
(Lloyd Bacon, 1933)
Peeping Tom
(Michael Powell, 1960)
Rashomon
(Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

Chris Dashiell

The Big Sleep
(Howard Hawks, 1946)
The Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari
(Robert Wiene, 1919)
Intolerance
(D.W. Griffith, 1916)
Muriel
(Alain Resnais, 1963)
Napoleon
(Abel Gance, 1927)

Ed Owens

The Bride with White Hair (Ronny Yu, 1993)
Un Chien Andalou
(Luis Buñuel, 1929)
Menace II Society
(Albert & Allen Hughes, 1993)
Reservoir Dogs
(Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
Wild Strawberries
(Ingmar Bergman, 1957)