2) Amores Perros - Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu
3) Trouble Every Day - Claire Denis
4) What Time Is It There? - Tsai Ming-Liang
5) Mulholland Drive - David Lynch
6) Ghost World - Terry Zwigoff
7) Waking Life - Richard Linkater
8) Innocence - Paul Cox
9) Les Glaneurs et La Glaneuse - Agnes Varde
Tie 10) Warm Water Under A Red Bridge - Shohei Immamura
10) The Royal Tenenbaums - Wes Anderson
10) Sexy Beast - Jonathon Glazer
w/Brother, Battle Royale, Millenium Mambo, Bully, Human Nature, RxMas, Time and Tide, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (for that fantastic soundtrack), Storytelling, Eloge de l'Amour, Lord Of The Rings I: The Fellowship of the Ring , ABC Africa
Undoubtedly, a fantastic year for movies.
2) Spirited Away - Hayao Miyazaki
3) Lundi Matin - Otar Iosseliani
4) Punch-Drunk Love - P.T. Anderson
5) The Pianist - Roman Polanski
6) Russian Ark - Aleksandr Sokurov
and then, in no order (I know, I can't count):
Catch Me If You Can - Steven Spielberg
24 Hour Party People - Michael Winterbottom
Morvern Callar - Lynne Ramsay
The Believer - Henry Bean
Roger Dodger - Dylan Kidd
Y Tu Mama Tambien - Alfonso Cuaron
and a special acknowledgement for Chris Marker's glorious Le Fond De L'Air Est Rouge, which received its first American distribution this year.
w/Far From Heaven, Confessions of A Dangerous Mind, About Schmidt, L'Emploi du Temps, Igby Goes Down, All Or Nothing and Mischka by Jean-Francois Stevenin... as well as the first half of Adaptation
My least favorites include The Hours, Nicole Garcia's L'Adversaire, Insomnia
A few bright (very bright) spots near the end, but I'm praying for a better 2003.
1. Turning Gate - Hong Sang-soo
2. Dracula: Pages From A Virgin's Diary - Guy Maddin
3. Vendredi Soir - Claire Denis
4. Man Without A Past - Aki Kaurismaki
5. Divine Intervention - Elia Suleiman
6. My Mother's Smile - Marco Bellocchio
7. Spellbound
8. Vagabond & Hukkle
9. Spider - David Cronenberg
10. Sweet Sixteen - Ken Loach
with/ Stevie, Ten, PTU, American Splendor, Gerry, The Mudge Boy, Power Trip, Marion Bridge, demonlover, Cremaster 3, Pirates of The Carribbean, Musa: The Warrior, So Close, Le Fils, In This World, Capturing The Friedmans
... my God, this has been a FANTASTIC year for movies, and it's not over yet.
My most despised film is undoubtedly Todd Graff's unbearable musical, Camp, but Decade Under The Influence is up there too. 28 Days Later gets my strong recommendation for most overrated. No point on picking on anything else.
This is a list that's completely without stability. It often depends on what I've seen recently, an illuminating article I might come into contact with, or maybe whatever nostalgic wave happens to hit me as I get out of bed in the morning. Anyway, I've contributed a top ten list to www.sensesofcinema.com, so it is, in a way, official. I've left myself enough leeway to add a whole bunch of alternates and additions. Mainly, this list is meant to argue against any sort of canon (or, at least, against whatever's currently enshrined). If a 'greatest film's list can't include something with the goofy charms of Something Wild, or doesn't have the imagination to compare Wong or Kiarostami on equal footing with Bergman or Fellini, then what good is it? The fact is that greatest film lists tend towards the uninteresting - in the sense that they are incredibly inflexible and repetitive. You won't be getting any surprises, for the most part. This list is a personal one, one that I hope will illuminate something about my tastes and character. The alternates list is long, but that's because I feel this exercise is somewhat academic, and arbitrary. How much better, or worse, is one great film from another? Does it matter? Regardless, these are the films that I love.
In no particular order.
PlayTime - Jacques Tati
Sherlock, Jr. - Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman
Pierrot le Fou - Jean-Luc Godard
Rio Bravo - Howard Hawks
Moment of Innocence - Mohsen Makhmalbaf
And Life Goes On - Abbas Kiarostami
Yi Yi - Edward Yang
Ivan the Terrible - Sergei Eisenstein
Celine and Julie Go Boating - Jacques Rivette
Taxi Driver - Martin Scorcese
Other favorites include:
Claire Denis' Beau Travail and Trouble Every Day
Cronenberg's Dead Ringers and Videodrome
Fassbinder's Merchant of Four Seasons
Kiarostami's The Wind Will Carry Us and Where Is The Friend's Home?
Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together and In The Mood For Love
Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly
Hawks' His Girl Friday
Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse
Cocteau's Orphee
Feuillade's Les Vampires
The Fatal Glass of Beer, with W.C. Fields
Godard's Le Mepris
Truffaut's Tirez Sur le Pianiste and La Nuit Americaine
Fellini's 8 1/2
Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket
Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr., The Navigator and The General
Scorcese's Mean Streets
Coppola's Godfather, I and II
Almodovar's Talk To Her
De Oliveira's Je Rentre A La Maison
Altman's Nashville, Short Cuts and McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Kitano's Sonatine
Haynes' Velvet Goldmine
Demme's Something Wild
Antonioni's L'Avventura
Welles' Touch of Evil and Citizen Kane
Miyazaki's Spirited Away
The Coen's The Big Lebowski
Bunuel's That Obscure Object of Desire, Belle du Jour and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Jarmusch's Dead Man
Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho
Samira Makhmalbaf's The Apple
Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc
Bresson's Pickpocket and A Man Escaped
Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera
Lang's M
Lubitsch's Trouble In Paradise and To Be or Not To Be
Errol Morris' Gates of Heaven and Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
Mackendrick's Sweet Smell of Success
Eustache's La Mamain et La Putain
Stuart Gordon's From Beyond
Kaurismaki's La Vie de Boheme