(At the midpoint of the list, the following serve
as a "tribute to the foreign-language films that
opened up American cinema to new worlds.")
51. M (1931), Fritz Lang
52. Zero
For Conduct (1933), Jean Vigo
53. Rules
of the Game (1939), Jean Renoir
54. Children
of Paradise (1945), Marcel Carné
55. The Bicycle Thief (1948),
Vittorio De Sica
56. The Earrings of Madame De... (1953),
Max Ophuls
57. Tokyo Story (1953),
Yasujiro Ozu
58. The Seven Samurai
(1954), Akira Kurosawa
59. Pather Panchali (1955), Satyajit
Ray
60. Breathless (1959), Jean-Luc
Godard
61. The 400 Blows (1959),
Francois Truffaut
62. La Dolce Vita (1960), Federico
Fellini
63. Viridiana (1961),
Luis Bunuel
64. Persona (1966),
Ingmar Bergman
65. The Conformist
(1971), Bernardo Bertolucci
66. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972),
Werner Herzog
67. Seven Beauties
(1976), Lina Wertmuller
68. Wings
of Desire (1988), Wim Wenders
69. Women
on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988),
Pedro Almodovar
70. The Killer (1989),
John Woo
71. City Lights (1931), Charles Chaplin
"Chaplin's little tramp (is) memorably in love with a blind flower girl."
72. Cabaret (1972), Bob Fosse
"The last great musical of the century, by a dancing man who knew the
world's wicked ways."
73. Quiz Show (1994), Robert Redford
"A 1950s TV scandal sparks Redford's anger about the slow death of American
values."
74. A Night at the Opera (1935), Sam Wood
"No director could ever exert control over the durable comic anarchy
of the Marx Brothers."
75. The Producers (1967), Mel Brooks
"'Springtime for Hitler' and comic gold."
76. Lost in America (1985), Albert Brooks
"Another Brooks in a pitch-perfect comedy."
77. The Terminator (1984),
James Cameron
"Cameron and a robot Ah-nuld set a new standard for sci-fi. T2
is bigger, but T1 rules."
78. White Heat (1949),
Raoul Walsh
"A James Cagney peak - top of the world, ma!"
79. His Girl Friday (1940), Howard Hawks
"Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell trade barbs in Hawks' spray of machine-gun
laughs."
80. Out of the Past (1947), Jacques Tourneur
"Is there a more perfect example of film noir?"
81. The Piano (1993), Jane Campion
"Passion, madness and mutilation from the fearless director of Sweetie
and Holy Smoke."
82. Blow-Up (1966),
Michelangelo Antonioni
"The dark side of swinging London."
83. Blow Out (1981), Brian De Palma
"The dark side of political conspiracy."
84. The Philadelphia Story (1940), George
Cukor
"The rich enjoying their bizarre privileges, with a sublime Katharine
Hepburn."
85. Bad Day at Black Rock (1955),
John Sturges
"Spencer Tracy uncovers a town's hidden past in a thriller that truly
thrills."
86. Ninotchka (1939), Ernst Lubitsch
"Garbo does Paris as a Russian agent. Be there."
87. Diner (1982), Barry Levinson
"Baltimore friends in need and in conflict - beautifully done and still
Levinson's best film."
88. To Sleep With Anger (1990), Charles Burnett
"A black family divided by a trickster, demonically played by Danny
Glover. Burnett remains a criminally neglected talent."
89. Unforgiven (1992),
Clint Eastwood
"The revisionist western that Eastwood took a career to make was well
worth the wait."
90. Midnight Cowboy (1969), John Schlesinger
"Jon Voight's hustler and Dustin Hoffman's seedy bum strike up a bizarre
bond and a beautiful friendship."
91. Lone Star (1996), John Sayles
"A Texas border town provides a broad canvas for Sayles' study of racism
and community."
92. The Naked Kiss (1964), Samuel Fuller
"A bald hooker, played by Constance Towers, brings out the nifty, nutso
best in Fuller."
93. The Crying Game (1992), Neil Jordan
"Sexual and political role-playing dished out with a shocker twist from
Jaye Davidson."
94. Broadcast News (1987), James L. Brooks
"Brooks' light touch doesn't dull his edge."
95. Dead Ringers (1988), David Cronenberg
"Jeremy Irons plays twin gynecologists in a gut wrencher that's pure
Cronenberg."
96. My Little Chickadee (1940), Edward Cline
"W. C. Fields and Mae West in their unholy, one and only comic
union. 'Nuf said."
97. Night of the Living
Dead (1968), George
Romero
"This low-budget, rogue model for terror is the stuff of bad dreams."
98. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975),
Terry Jones
"Inspired lunacy about silly knights from the peerless Python troupe."
99.
Intolerance (1916), D. W. Griffith
"You can still feel Griffith's pioneer excitement about the medium in
this silent epic. You can also feel his own intolerance about sound:
'We do not want now and we shall never want the human voice with our
films.' That's pretty harsh. But considering the dialogue in Titanic
and the cutesy chattering in Pokemon, maybe old D.W. had a point."
100. Freaks (1932), Tod Browning
"'One of us! One of us!' That's what the circus-side-show freaks in
Browning's sly fable shout when they spot a kindred spirit among normal
folks, whoever they are. Here's to those kindred spirits who make movies
and to those who watch them. One of us, indeed." |