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Film has such a huge library of "great movies", I have over 700 films logged on letterboxd, with a pretty decent spread of years/countries and I would say I still know basically nothing about film. I can fire up Criterion Channel or MUBI and watch brilliant movies no one ever talks about. It is a real shame Criterion Channel isn't more popular...if you like movies you are doing a disservice to yourself not picking it up. If only Netflix embraced the library style dream instead of shilling their own over produced crap.
Great to see Fitzcaraldo on here, a film that usually gets talked a lot about, or you see a lot of "Watch the documentary, it is better", but rarely gets the praise it deserves as film itself. Knowing nothing about this film, and watching it for the fist time was an amazing and unforgettable experience.
Also great to see Last Year at Marienbad on here, for which Robbe-Grillet wrote the entire thing but rarely gets credited. If you like Last Year check out some of Robbe-Grillet's other films...not for everyone, but among my most favorite. His "The Erotic Dream Machine: Interviews with Alain Robbe-Grillet" offers some of the greatest insights about film and film as art.
Just a few days ago I watched Sci-fi classic "Solaris" by Andrei Tarkovsky and I had no expectations or knowledge about the movie or Director before watching it and it blew my mind. I then looked into other movies directed by Tarkovsky such as "Stalker" and "Andrei Rublev" which nobody in my age group knows or talk about but these are great movies. I am looking forward to finding such hidden gems and watching these films.
> Film has such a huge library of "great movies", I have over 700 films logged on letterboxd, with a pretty decent spread of years/countries and I would say I still know basically nothing about film.
Film is so full of great stuff that there exists a reasonably-curated meta best-of-list of 1,000 great ones... with an overflow list of the next 1,000 that's also almost all excellent, and those still aren't a comprehensive list of all the films worth watching.
https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm
(Possibly NSFW because of screen-caps from movies)
Strongly agree here. Letterboxd is the best thing that has happened to me in recent past. It introduced me to almost endless list of absolutely fantastic movies I didn't knew existed especially non-english movies no one talks about. And I just logged my 700th movie yesterday.
I adore Last Year at Marienbad. Although I agree with Sofia Coppola that it's inevitably a movie where I doze off a little. That's alright since the entire film is like a weird dream. It's refreshing having a film that resists interpretation so intensely. It's utterly surreal, beautiful and tragic, yet without having a singular "correct" reading. Rashomon and Last Year at Marienbad would be an excellent double billing.
Hiroshima Mon Amour is another fantastic film. In both films Resnais is so brilliant in his editing, in its non-linearity, in its emotional effect. Frankly he might be one of my favorite directors of the Left Bank/New Wave generation.
> I have over 700 films logged on letterboxd, with a pretty decent spread of years/countries and I would say I still know basically nothing about film.
It depends on what it means to "know film". It's a deep rabbit hole, but if you're logging the films you appreciate in some way and now you're up to 700, I would say you "know" a lot more than most.
Here's a gem for you... "Spring Night Summer Night". It's available free streaming on byNWR.com. Completely forgotten film that was meticulously restored by Nicholas Winding Refn. (review https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/spring...).
I was approaching 3000 films on criticker back in college when I realized, that I would never be able to begin to approach watching all of the films that I wanted to. Sort of like, the more you know the more you know you don't know. I ended up deleting all of my tracking of films, books (well now I'm tracking my books again for insurance purposes) etc and no longer worry about seeing all the important films.
I didn't know about Criterion Channel. Shame it's US only. I'd love to have that.
I've seen letterboxd mentioned a couple times in this thread. I use trakt.tv (which has nice Plex integration), are they both sort of the same thing?
When you look at the selection criteria, it's hard to accept this as Kurosawa's favorite movies.
Based on the handful of films I've seen on this list, though, this is probably a list of films you should go out of your way to see if you're into film for something more than just for entertainment. Some are just flat out entertaining for anyone though, with the drama of Witness, the comedy of The Thin Man or the wonder of My Neighbor Totoro. Some show off the technical prowess of the director, like Barry Lindon. Some have stood the test of time as a work of art like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Of course, I guess the point is that great movies hit many of these categories.
I also highly recommend The Thin Man, we've (me and my SO) just seen it last week and it was a breath of fresh air among all the gloomy news surrounding us.
> Some have stood the test of time as a work of art like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
I tried watching The Cabinet once. Maybe I should try again, but, as far as I remember, the quality of the video was so bad that I don't think I had even a chance of appreciating the movie as a work art (at least not in the way I usually watch movies); and I think it was my impression at the time that no copy with better quality existed anymore?
Was it easily watchable for others here who watched it, or was it necessary to approach it studiously, e.g., rewinding every so often and slowing down the playback, to be able to appreciate it at all?
Kurosawa-san may be too humble to add his own Ikiru (生きる, "To Live") to this list. But it well deserves its place in the pantheon. A film to restore your faith in the simple act of surviving ;)
There's a whole bunch of his films I'd put squarely in my all-time list. Ikiru, Ran, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, High and Low, Dersu Uzala, Rashomon. It's one masterpiece after another. Try watching Seven Samurai and Ikiru back to back to really appreciate the genius of Takeshi Shimura as an actor.
I completely agree! Ikiru had a huge effect on me, and I've never been able to forget Takashi Shimura's facial expressions from it.
A bit OT, but this reminded me of the story behind the “catch copy” by Shigesato Itoi [1] for Mononoke Hime, 「生きろ」
https://ghibli.jpn.org/report/mononoke-9/
(Used prominently in their marketing material including posters)
Anyone setting out to watch this should be warned that they will cry like a little baby. At least I did.
Interesting list. This author's incredulous introduction is most unwelcome. If you want to make a list go for it friend but this is someone else's list. If you want a perfectly ordered prestige fest there's AFI, IMDB and many other places you can find that.
Personally, I'd have no problem watching Barry Lindon over Clockwork any day of the week. And of course there's no Ozu on there. The two had a long standing beef. Kurosawa was proud as f**. Even if "Floating Weeds" is a work of pure melodramatic genius in which every shot is perfect, it's not making a list by Kurosawa.
Check the list again:
27. Banshun [Late Spring] (Ozu, 1949) Japan
Barry Lyndon may be slow-paced, but it's the Kubrick I'd pick too. Just don't come to it as a Hollywood movie.
He agrees with me that “Barry Lyndon” is Kubrick’s best. I guess I feel a little vindicated since I’ve never found anybody else that did agree with that. I love all of Kubrick’s films, but in some of the best, he just couldn’t tell the story it seems. Barry Lyndon tells the story in addition to being classic Kubrick.
"Barry Lyndon" always felt like a film that Kubrick just did in his spare time and took no creative- / deadline- / budget- / non-Barry-Lyndon-as-Kubrick-wants-it-to-be -related input from anyone. A pure Kubrick piece.
I do enjoy "Killing", however, so much that I am tempted to call it my Kubrick's favorite.
You must not be in the internet much, because this is always the contrarian pick. In fact, your same comment is repeated multiple times in this very thread.
There are great films in the Criterion Collection but there are also quite a lot of average films. I live in France and we have access (not at the moment because of covid) to unlimited movie pass (the best is UGC illimité if you live in Paris) for as little as 22€/month. I usually try to go and watch a lot of films but when I'm busy and have to select films, checking rottentomatoes and going to see films that have >90% score is a fast way to filter out the bad films. Recently, I have started buying great films so that I can share them with my parents who don't live in a big city. Most films I have bought are from the Criterion Collection but it's quite expensive to. get (need to order from Amazon.com as criterion.com won't ship to Europe) and it's a real pain to deal with region restrictions (most films are region A but some such as Tampopo are region B so you need either two blu-ray players or a region-free one such as the Freebox Revolution with the Konami code) Also, some choices made by Criterion are really questionable: some films (for example Like Someone in Love) have subtitles hardcoded. (maybe it's the case for all non English films. I haven't checked with films in Spanish but there are hardcoded subtitles in films in Japanese, Chinese and Korean) I get it that it's probably cheaper to get the rights of a film with hardcoded subtitles but I think people who are willing to pay $45 for a film wouldn't mind paying $5 more and have the ability to remove subtitles.
It is interesting seeing how many German films made the list prior to 1939. Then Germany didn’t make the list again until the 80’s. I didn’t realize how good their film scene was pre-war.
We recently saw the restored Metropolis for the first time, was intriguing.
Perhaps because most of the German film Industry had migrated to Hollywood by then
I see a Mabuse movie on position three, and for the purposes of fun and entertainment, I would like to recommend to watch "Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse" instead. Due to the later time of its release, it wasn't as influential, but it's a really good movie and it works better for watchers (such as myself) used to modern stylistic conventions in movies.
I've imported the list to Letterboxd:
https://letterboxd.com/js2/list/akira-kurosawas-100-favorite...
One curiosity: Aoi sanmyaku (青い山脈) is apparently "The Blue Mountains", but OC translated it as "The Green Mountains."
(Also, it's two parts, so I added both to the Letterboxd list, similar to Ivan the Terrible, which is why there's 102 entries.)
Fun fact: 青い (ah-oi) means both green and blue in Japanese. There is a more specific word for green 緑 (midori) but 青い is still commonly used to mean green. For instance, "green light" (as in a stop light) is 青信号 (ah-oh shingou) where 信号 means signal.
"Green" is a reasonable translation - the same word is used for the "green" of plants or traffic lights. When referring to a mountain it is very likely to be referring to its greenery.
The boundaries between named colors have historically varied wildly between languages.
I am also struck by the list’s most glaring, and curious, omission. There’s no Orson Welles
Why is it that the deeper someone gets into a field/hobby the less accepting they are of other people having different tastes? You're not beholden to anyone for your preferences. You're allowed to like or dislike anything for any reason, even something as silly as the way someone pronounces a word or maybe the director's face reminds you of your high school bully.
> glaring, and curious
both of these things can be true without being condescending. it is kind of interesting that welles didn't make the list given his status as a filmmaker, and i don't think the author is completely doubting the taste of one of the greats here lol
Also, The Third Man is in the list...
I wanted to start watching more classic movies recently as I realised that beside Chaplin's, I've seen very few movies made prior to the 1960s. I've found the main streaming platforms to have very little choice when it comes to these. Where would you recommend watching these old classic movies listed here?
Criterion is the best place to get "important classic and contemporary films" if it is available in your region. I am also hearing a lot of good things about Mubi these days though I have not tried it personally.
I don't have Criterion available in my region nor can I find DVD/blurays anywhere so sailing the high seas is the only option for me.
I have only seen 12 of the movies on the list. I have 88 new movies to watch.
Kurosawa did the best Macbeth. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it.
Favorite movie lists are somewhat BS. At least for me, my favorite movies evolve constantly. It depends on what I've seen recently, what's been on the forefront of my mind, my mood, etc. Not to mention there's movies that I find fascinating that I may not love. Or movies that had a profound effect on me that I'm not jumping to rewatch. Someone like Kurosawa has likely seen thousands of movies. This is likely a small snapshot into a larger universe of his personal cinema.
Instead of lists, I love the Criterion setup of interviewing the person and having them talk about each film and how it impacted their lives. It's far more interesting to hear why Barry Jenkins loved La Cienaga than to see it on his list at #10.
Godfather II over Godfather?!?
Godfather II over Godfather?!?
Still, it looks like a worthwhile list to plunder.
I plundered a lot of the movie names dropped by Jerry Harvey in "Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession." Imagine having such an eye for movies that you could watch "Heaven's Gate"-- considered the flop of flops at the time-- and surmise that it's probably a great movie that got cut poorly.
Even more impressive-- imagine having such credibility that you could convince an audience who yawned through 2.5 hours of "the most boring movie ever" to wade through 3 hours and 40 minutes of a longer cut of the same movie. He basically invented the "director's cut."
An interesting website based on this concept is https://www.lacinetek.com/ : it's a website gathering recommendations from famous directors (including Kurosawa), and offering to rent the movies for streaming.
It includes mainly classic and high quality movies, and while it's a bit pricey compared to Netflix, I've yet to be disappointed by a selection. Picking a movie from there is the equivalent of eating in a nice restaurant : probably not something you'd do everyday, but definitely worth it once in a while.
Here's a list for clearer viewing, cover art etc.:
What a terrible list. It doesn't even have Seven Samurai on it!
Three movies for freedom lovers:
* Logan's Run ... It really is safe outside
* Demolition Man ... "You see, according to Cocteau's plan I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think; I like to read."
* Gattaca ... "I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science."
Seems like this is ordered by year, so the first isn't necessarily his most favorite.
I've got 37, wonder how many films did anybody else get, who cared to count?
Correct me if I am wrong ... but I am under the impression that Kurosawa does not make "movies". He makes "films". The kind that makes people mad when you fall asleep a quarter of the way in.