Best Films Ever
To make Bill's Top 25, a movie has to have three things going for it:
it is artistically original and innovative, or an outstanding consummation of a particular approach to film art.
it has a significant place in the history of film and/or of society
it has something important to say about the human condition
Most of these films do not display all three traits in equal measure. The Third Man,
for example, was not a powerfully influential film, but it was outstanding in the other
two categories. The General is not as profound a film as, say,
Roshomon, but it is a consummate expression of all that was great about
the silent era, and it is wildly inventive.
I don't believe in limiting yourself to a prescribed list of rated movies. So why a
"top 25"? For people who haven't spent a lot of time looking into the history of
cinema or reading reviews but who would like to make sure they've seen all of the most
important ones. Even if you disagree with some of my selections, I don't think you could
dispute the fact that these are among the most important films ever made. More
importantly, they are worth seeing.
| The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) |
| Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972) |
| Citizen Kane (Orson
Welles, 1941) |
| City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1933) |
| The General (Buster
Keaton, 19??) |
| Dr. Strangelove
(Stanley Kubrick, 1961) |
| Midnight Cowboy
(John Schlesinger,1969) |
| The Graduate (Mike
Nichols, 1969) |
| The Godfather
(Francis Ford Coppolla, 1972) |
| Kagemusha (Akira
Kurasawa, 1980) |
| The Pawnbroker
(Sidney Lumet, 1965) |
| Duck Soup (Leo McCarey,
1933) |
| Leolo (Lauzon, 1995) |
| The Seventh Seal
(Ingmar Bergman, 1957) |
| The
Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) |
|
|
| McCabe and
Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 197?) |
|
|
| Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody
Allen, 1989) |
|
|
| Metropolis (Lang, 1926) |
|
|
|
Red, White, Blue:
Three Colours - the Trilogy (Kristof Kieslowski) |
|
|
| Rashomon (Akira Kurasawa,
1950) |
|
|
| Klute (Alan Pakula, 1971) |
|
|
|
Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur
Penn, 1967) |
|
|
| Heavenly Creatures (Peter
Jackson, 1993) |
|
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Diversions
Date Here
Thursday, December 03, 2020