Introduction
I separated part 2 of last week’s radio show covering film, because it became rather lengthy and longer than the on-air time I devoted to it.
Top 10 Movies of all time . . . maybe
I only used the first 10 of this list; Top 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (The Ultimate List) by Chris Walczyk created – 21 Dec 2012 and updated – 28 Mar 2017. His movies on this list are ranked according to their success (awards & nominations), their popularity, and their cinematic greatness from a directing/writing perspective.
I added my own comments and those of the late Roger Ebert, my favorite film critic who won a Pulitzer for film criticism.
1. The Godfather (1972): Dir: Francis Ford Coppola with Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan and Diane Keaton
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty in postwar New York City transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant youngest son. (Nominated for 11 Oscars, won for best picture, best actor, Brando, and best screenplay.)
This movie shows up in the top ten of all the lists I’ve scanned as it should. Its sequel also gets high marks. The line, “I’ll make him a deal he can’t refuse,” has been much quoted. The level of authenticity in this movie has us eavesdropping on the machinations of a criminal empire.
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994): Dir: Frank Darabont with Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman
Over the course of several years, two convicts form a friendship, seeking consolation and, eventually, redemption through basic compassion. (Nominated for 7 Oscars, but no wins.)
Robbins and Freeman have great screen chemistry and lift this movie above its prison trappings. Having Freeman do the off-screen narration lets us observe Andy (Robbins) and encourages us to discover who he is by his actions and Freeman’s dialogue. When Andy first arrives at prison Red observes, “looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over.” As it happens, Andy was a lot tougher than he looked.
As one would expect, this challenging and thoughtful movie really found its audience in the video rental market where its popularity zoomed until it became the highest rated movie on IMDB. It is well worth seeing again and again as more is revealed with each viewing.
3. Schindler’s List (1993): Dir: Steven Spielberg with Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley
In German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis. (Nominated for 12 Oscars, won 7 including best picture, best director, best screenplay, and best cinematography.)
A great cast, cinematography and Spielberg’s able direction of a project close to his heart transcend this dark moment in history. Roger Ebert on Spielberg: “In the ruins of the saddest story of the century, he found, not a happy ending, but at least one affirming that resistance to evil is possible and can succeed.”
4. Raging Bull (1980): Dir: Martin Scorsese with: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty and Joe Pesci
The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it. (Nominated for 8 Oscars, won 2.)
De Niro put his heart and body into this movie. Hard to watch at times, but his portrayal earned him a Best Actor Oscar. Scorsese took 10 weeks to shoot the fight scenes, using sponges in the gloves and tubes in the hair of his fighters to show the impact of the blows as well as sound design for each blow’s impact. Scorsese said he filmed in black and white because he didn’t want to show so much blood. Rocky would have been hesitant to step in the ring with LaMotta.
5. Casablanca (1942): Dir: Michael Curtiz with Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco. (Nominated for 8 Oscars, won for best picture, best director and screenplay.)
There were many great lines in this movie that keep the flow lighter than the subject matter would indicate. Near the film’s climax Rick trains his gun on Renault.
Rick: And remember, this gun is pointed right at your heart.
Captain Renault: That is my least vulnerable spot.
And the last line as Rick and Renault walk off together.
Rick: Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I fully agree with Roger Ebert’s comments here: “Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it. The black-and-white cinematography has not aged as color would. The dialogue is so spare and cynical it has not grown old-fashioned.”
6. Citizen Kane (1941): Dir: Orson Welles with Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton and Agnes Moorehead
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: ‘Rosebud.’ (Nominated for 9 Oscars, won for Mankiewicz’s screenplay.)
William Randolph Hearst hated it and tried to keep it off screens, which led to a movie, RKO 281 (1999), about the movie. Kane was obviously a parody of Hearst; a publishing tycoon and very powerful man. Cinematographer, Greg Toland’s use of “deep focus” was very effectively here. (Everything in frame is in focus.)
Interest in the film was renewed when the movie Mank (2020) came out about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), who co-wrote the script for Citizen Kane. Done in black & white with great period details, it is highly recommended.
7. Gone with the Wind (1941): Dirs: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood with Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Thomas Mitchell
American motion picture classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man conduct a turbulent romance during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. (Nominated for 13 Oscars, won 8 including best picture, actress (Vivien Leigh), screenplay and cinematography.)
Note the three directors for a film that held enough challenges it required the fortitude of three. While CGI is now routinely done to create a cast of thousands of extras, here it required the actual bodies. The sets that had to be built and the costumes made certainly made this a costly movie to make.
8. The Wizard of Oz (1939): Dirs: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy, Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe and King Vidor with Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr
Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others’ wishes. (Nominated for 5 Oscars, won 2.)
Here we have more directors than the actual cast. It must have been like a revolving door for directors. Actually, Fleming left to direct Gone with the Wind. The startling use of color in this movie would have made it magical to its first audiences.
Roger Ebert: “The Wizard of Oz has a wonderful surface of comedy and music, special effects and excitement, but we still watch it six decades later because its underlying story penetrates straight to the deepest insecurities of childhood, stirs them and then reassures them.”
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975): Dir: Milos Forman with Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher and an early role for Danny DeVito
In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse (Fletcher). (Nominated for 9 Oscars, won for best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay. It was the first movie in 41 years to sweep all the major categories.)
Even though the movie is set in a mental institution, it’s not about insanity, but a free spirit against a formidable authority in Fletcher’s own dramatic performance. When Chief Bromden throws a sink though the hospital wall near the movie’s end the audience I was part of cheered loudly.
If you can’t get enough of nurse Ratched, Netflix is streaming Ratched (2020) as a prequel of these events with Sarah Paulsen as Mildred Ratched.
10. Lawrence of Arabia (1962): Dir: David Lean with Peter O’Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins
The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks. (Nominated for 10 Oscars, won 7.)
You’ve never seen a dessert look more mystical and dreamlike than this film and cinematographer Freddie Young scored one of the 7 Oscars the film garnered. It also took home Best Picture and Best Director honors. A long movie at 3 hours 38 minutes, it did not seem so when I watched it in its 70mm widescreen release. I was too mesmerized by the scope and vastness of the dessert, of seeing a tiny spec in the shimmering distance become a man astride a camel.
If you have the opportunity to see it in the restored cut (1989) on the big screen jump at the chance.
Now if this was my list I would have added Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960) and Pulp Fiction (1994). However, we have two more lists to view, and as you’ll see there is little agreement amongst list makers.
IMDB Top 10 from Rotten Tomatoes:
- 12 Angry Men’ (1957) 100
- Schindler’s List’ (1993) 98
- The Godfather’ (1972) 97
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967) 97
- The Godfather, Part II (1974) 96
- The Dark Knight’ (2008) 94
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 93
- Pulp Fiction’ (1994) 92
- The Shawshank Redemption’ (1994) 91
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’ (2001) 91
Rotten Tomatoes is a group of critics whose scores show up on the IMDB website. Their scores are listed in bold after each movie. I did see 12 Angry Men with Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb and thought it a superb play/film, but not one I’d see over and over again, which is one of my parameters of a great film. And while I enjoyed all the “man with no name” films Eastwood did, I would not have elevated one to the top ten. Also note two big production fantasy films, maybe three if you count The Dark Knight, which suggests more enthusiasm for fantasy than I can generate. But then this was not my list.
Here is another very recent list from Phil de Semlyen and Joshua Rothkopf (1/25/2023)
Warning: the list you’re about to read is guaranteed to raise your blood pressure, make your veins bulge and possibly rupture your larynx screaming, ‘What the hell are these idiots thinking?!’ I like that warning because everyone expects their favorite movie(s) to be on the list.
Further on they write: Sure, music, literature and television can get folks riled up, but something about film is different. Movies live with us in a way great songs and books don’t. They shape who we are and how we see the world. Watch a favorite movie enough, and gradually it doesn’t just become a creature comfort or a nostalgic trigger – it almost becomes a lived-in experience.
Notice their comments are similar to Ebert’s own about seeing Casablanca every year.
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): Dir: Stanley Kubrick (Arthur C. Clarke)
- The Godfather (1972)
- Citizen Kane (1941)
- Jeanne Dielman (1975) Bruxelles: Long considered a feminist masterpiece
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford
- La Dulce Vita (1960): Fellini made Marcello Mastroianni a star and gave us the word paparazzi.
- Seven Samurai (1954): Dir: Akira Kurosawa with Toshiro Mifune
- In the Mood for Love (2000): Dir: Wong Kar-wai with Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung
Set in 1960s Hong Kong, the story is about the lives of two neighbors who discover their spouses are having an affair and end up falling in love. - There Will Be Blood (2007): Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson with Daniel Day-Lewis
- Singing In the Rain (1952): Gene Kelly with Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly
I have never heard of numbers 4 and 8, but note that this is an international list of films and I will check them out.
The point here is that no one will fully agree with any list unless it’s their own. And that’s as it should be.
Recent Comments