A Top 10 Thread

[sol]

-I wouldn't have guessed your #1, that's a unique pick. Between your #1 and #8 I'd guess you'd have an affinity for paranoid thrillers. I assume you've already seen most of Alan J. Pakula's filmography?
-The 4 Scream films is an interesting choice. I finally watched the first one for the first time a couple weeks ago. I'd love to hear what you love about them.

I wouldn't have ever thought to call Videodrome a unique pick, but I suppose I am the only forum user who has it as their #1. What can I say? Beyond being a brilliant mood piece, Videodrome is the single film out there that has the most to say about the relationship that we as viewers have with the films that we view.

Yes, I am big into paranoia thrillers; I have Don't Look Now and the Welles version of The Trial inside my top 20 too. I've seen 12 films by Pakula.

Recent Letterboxd reviews for all four Scream films: https://letterboxd.com/solh/films/diary ... es-craven/

I love how much each the films have to say about the movies, as well as the impact of cinema on the younger generations. The series gets progressively more interesting as it moves from film 2 to 4 and the fictitious Stab series becomes a bigger and bigger part of the narrative, with reconstructed sets, characters interacting with actors playing them and so forth. Each of the four films is incredibly funny and the character dynamics are amazing, especially the arcs of the Campbell, Cox and Arquette characters over the course of the franchise. Perhaps best of all though is how well each film works as a murder mystery, with lots of subtle clues dropped along the way, many of which only become noticeable after repeat viewings. Try rewatching Scream knowing who Ghostface is, and I guarantee you'll find it much more dynamic.

[sol]

1. Your age (if you don't mind, of course!)
2. Your feature films seen (approx.)

33

Approximately 9,100 feature films seen.

How many times have I seen my top 10?

1. Videodrome / 1983 / David Cronenberg --- 11 viewings

2. Fanny and Alexander / 1982 / Ingmar Bergman --- 5 viewings

3. Solaris / 1972 / Andrei Tarkovsky --- 7 viewings

4. Scream Quadrilogy / 1996-2011 / Wes Craven --- 8 viewings

5. Eyes Wide Shut / 1999 / Stanley Kubrick --- 5 viewings

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey / 1968 / Stanley Kubrick --- 8 viewings

7. The Last Picture Show / 1971 / Peter Bogdanovich --- 4 viewings

8. The Conversation / 1974 / Francis Ford Coppola --- 4 viewings

9. The Night of the Hunter / 1955 / Charles Laughton --- 3 viewings

10. Crimes and Misdemeanors / 1989 / Woody Allen --- 3 viewings

[mightysparks]

Was curious about my number of viewings for each...

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) --- 6 viewings
2. Festen (1998) --- 4 viewings
3. A Clockwork Orange (1971) --- 4+ viewings
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) --- 4 viewings
5. From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) --- 8+ (impossible to know)
6. An American Werewolf in London (1981) --- 3 viewings
7. Le samouraï (1967) --- 4 viewings
8. Dawn of the Dead (1978) --- 3 viewings
9. Pulp Fiction (1994) --- 3+ viewings (impossible to know)
10. Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) --- 3 viewings

My most watched film is probably the first LOTR, which I think is somewhere in my top 15...

[Mulholland]

Two things would seem interesting to me to provide only the least of context for all those Top 10s:

1. Your age (if you don't mind, of course!)
2. Your feature films seen (approx.)

1. 31
2. 2400 feature films

... I am shocked that it's that few. I only just managed to convince my husband to agree to a third film night. If we hadn't been together for 12 years I think this number would be much larger.

[Torgo]

I wonder if PeacefulAnarchy will reply to this topic and just point to his avatar on the left.

[Eve-Lang-El-Coup]

My age is 32
And the feature films I've is somewhere around 6000 mark.

In no particular order after number one.

1) All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001)


2) The World, The Flesh and The Devil (1959)


3) The Last Bridge (1954)


4) A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)


5) Iphigenia (1977)


6) The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973)


7) Stalker (1979)


8) The Cranes Are Flying (1957)


9) The Deluge (1974)


10) Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

[tommy_leazaq]

Not going to be changed anytime soon....

1. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
3. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
5. Psycho (1960)
6. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
7. 12 Angry Men (1957)
8. Life Is Beautiful (1997)
9. Monsters, Inc. (2001)
10. Seven Samurai (1954)

[kongs_speech]

My list has changed dramatically this year.

01. The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
02. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, Martin Scorsese)
03. All That Jazz (1979, Bob Fosse)
04. Daisies (1966, Vera Chytilova)
05. Pierrot le fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)
06. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
07. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
08. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019, Celine Sciamma)
09. Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufman)
10. Almost Famous (2000, Cameron Crowe)

[prodigalgodson]

Wow, big drop for Almost Famous! And Southland Tales.

[kongs_speech]

Wow, big drop for Almost Famous! And Southland Tales.

Indeed. The more films I watch (and in some cases, rewatch), the more it changes. This has been the biggest film year of my life, and I expect that 2021 will be even more eventful. I have four major projects in mind for next year:

- finish seeing every film that interests me from 2020 releases (~80 films)
- clear out the DVR (~300 films) and keep it cleared out
- platinum as many official lists as possible
- watch the ~165 films in my physical collection that I am unsure about keeping because they might suck

[pitchorneirda]

Make sure if you watch Hyenas you watch the newly restored version in all its pristine, colorful glory.

I watched it yesterday and it sure was a treat for the eyes Amazing restoration
And now out of 3 Mambety I have two dislikes and...one new favourite it's so different than Touki Bouki or Le Franc...I can't quite believe this was by the same director

[outdoorcats]

It is extremely (stylistically) different from Touki Bouki, but thematically very similar. I love both for different reasons.

[Coryn]

Age: 25
Checks: 1900

Which means I still am the person with the most gems to discover.
Honestly, for everyone worried about being mainstream ... we were discussing what movie to watch one evening with 5 friends and I proposed Fight Club as it is hard to dislike for many non-cinephiles. It was vetoed out because it was made in the 20th century. Thus so far for us being mainstream, maybe to some people on the forum but to the general public, definitely not.

1. Idi i smotri (1985)
2. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
3. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
4. Naked (1993)
5. Persona (1966)
6. 12 Angry Men (1957)
7. Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009)
8. There Will Be Blood (2007)
9. Jagten (2012)
10. Werckmeister harmóniák (2000)

[Torgo]

Age: 25

(...)It was vetoed out because it was made in the 20th century.

At least there's a clear and simple line for the Gen Z fellas.


It's less funky than some of us may think though: I'm 34 now. When I was your age (... !!), the equivalent would have been to propose a film made around 1989-1991; which would have felt "old" to a regular mainstream audience. Or, if the movie was known & popular enough, people already knew it more than enough from other viewings and airings on TV. The choice would have led to something made around the year 2000.

When I'm around the film pleb (e.g. normal people), they want to watch and have recommended new stuff. Like, new. Released not too long ago to streaming services; seldomly more than 2-3 year old. 5 years wouldn't count as new anymore. 2012 would mark a line (the date, not the movie (pity)).

[Onderhond]

It was vetoed out because it was made in the 20th century.

I've seen 9800 films and agree with your friends

[cinewest]

Lot's of interesting top 10 lists in this thread, but I can't figure out how to go about one of my own.

Do I try and list what I think have been or are the 10 most important films in my life, or those I have considered the best at any given point in time? And how different would my determinations be if I were to watch the same films today that I loved years ago? Moreover, how much are my impressions colored by a kind of nostalgia for a past experience that may no longer be valid apart from my attachment to that sense of my former self?

If I consider my life as a film lover, my favorites at any point in time are those that have made the biggest impression on me at a given point, at least as I remember them, yet "time" (as a point of reference that also provides context) is always changing, just as I am, and the only "favorites" I feel certain about are the most recent ones I have seen, though even then my preference for them is probably somewhat contextual.

Given all of that, trying to settle on ten seems almost impossible to me, and depending the frame of reference I use, I would probably come up with a somewhat different group of ten each time (didn't I read somewhere that even Sight & Sound is planning to go to a "top 50" for their next major poll in 2022?).

What would be easier for me would be to go back through my life (since childhood) and try to remember my favorite (or most influential) films during given short periods of my life, but then I would surely hit 10 before I reached the end of high school, and my love of cinema really took off (I am now 60, and my taste has changed quite a bit over the years, even as I can make out a fairly clear path between now and then that has much to do with my own personal development and life experiences).

Pretty much all of my most memorable film experiences have been in a movie theater, and the last one of these that absolutely wowed me was when I saw Holy Motors in 2013. I’ve seen a lot of very good films since then, but that one would definitely be among my current too 10

[Reflect]

1. End of Evangelion (1997)
2. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
3. Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)
4. Dreams (1990)
5. A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
6. Love Exposure (2008)
7. Ordet (1955)
8. Mulholland Dr. (2001)
9. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
10. Contempt (1963)

A hard question, for sure, but these are the 10 I'd go with as the greatest films. My list has definitely changed over time, but I'm at an age now where I feel I can assess pretty well how moved/impressed by a film I am, so I don't see this lineup changing too drastically in the future.

[viktor-vaudevillain]

I haven't compiled a top 10 list for some years now, and I'd say that it's as well a very liquid thing, though a few titles are rock steady. I'm keeping it features only. A top 10 list is only about exclusion, so remember the 300 other films, which could have made the cut as well (nothing Japanese, only one woman, no silent film, no campy stuff, Hong, Sternberg, Lynch, Fulton, Bresson, Akerman, Schanelec, Cronenberg, Marker, Ozu, Petzold, Grandrieux etc. is not represented - and you could on!)

... but I like my list as it is now:

1. Зеркало / Mirror (Andrei Tarkovskij, 1975)
2. Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999)
3. All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)
4. 不散 / Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-Liang, 2003)
5. สัตว์ประหลาด / Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
6. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
7. Céline (Jean-Claude Brisseau, 1992)
8. Juventude Em Marcha / Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, 2006)
9. माटी मानस / Mind of Clay (Mani Kaul, 1985)
10. A Comédia de Deus / God's Comedy (João César Monteiro, 1995)

Age: 25
Films seen: aprox. 3000

[viktor-vaudevillain]

1. End of Evangelion (1997)
2. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
3. Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)
4. Dreams (1990)
5. A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
6. Love Exposure (2008)
7. Ordet (1955)
8. Mulholland Dr. (2001)
9. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
10. Contempt (1963)

Lovely list! at least 5 of those could have made it to my list as well (on a different day). Ordet, A Brighter Summer Day and Mulholland Dr. were on my list a couple of years ago actually.
I still haven't seen Love Exposure, Dreams and Evangelion though. Haven't seen much anime in a couple of years, but I'm interested in the Evangelion films and series, as I see it mentioned a lot by people and sources who often share my taste in visual media. Is it possible to watch End of Evangelion separately without having watched the series beforehand?

[viktor-vaudevillain]

2) The World, The Flesh and The Devil (1959)

Never heard of this one before. Thanks. Gotta watch it soon, seems very interesting. Actually your list is among the most interesting of the lot. Also reminded me of Die Letzte Brücke, Iphigenia and The Deluge, which I should prioritize watching. Only seen 3 from your list, but those 3 are big favorites.

[kongs_speech]

My list has changed dramatically this year.

01. The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
02. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, Martin Scorsese)
03. All That Jazz (1979, Bob Fosse)
04. Daisies (1966, Vera Chytilova)
05. Pierrot le fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)
06. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
07. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
08. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019, Celine Sciamma)
09. Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufman)
10. Almost Famous (2000, Cameron Crowe)

I flipped #8 and 9 and moved Gold Diggers of 1933 up to 10th.

[Reflect]

1. End of Evangelion (1997)
2. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
3. Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)
4. Dreams (1990)
5. A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
6. Love Exposure (2008)
7. Ordet (1955)
8. Mulholland Dr. (2001)
9. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
10. Contempt (1963)

Lovely list! at least 5 of those could have made it to my list as well (on a different day). Ordet, A Brighter Summer Day and Mulholland Dr. were on my list a couple of years ago actually.
I still haven't seen Love Exposure, Dreams and Evangelion though. Haven't seen much anime in a couple of years, but I'm interested in the Evangelion films and series, as I see it mentioned a lot by people and sources who often share my taste in visual media. Is it possible to watch End of Evangelion separately without having watched the series beforehand?

Thanks! You've got a great list too.

I would urge against watching End of Evangelion without seeing the show beforehand, as you'd be missing the narrative context that leads up to it as well as (more significantly) the emotional context. It primarily is set after the events of the show. I don't think it'd be impossible to appreciate/get a lot out of without having seen the show, but I think that'd be far from ideal.

[kongs_speech]

Sat down on Christmas Eve and made a new top 100. I imagine it will look very different a year from now, but it's certainly the best list I've ever had and very accurate to my taste.

https://letterboxd.com/kongs_speech/lis ... -12-24-20/

[prodigalgodson]

^Nice showing for Under the Sun of Satan!

[Reflect]

Sat down on Christmas Eve and made a new top 100. I imagine it will look very different a year from now, but it's certainly the best list I've ever had and very accurate to my taste.

https://letterboxd.com/kongs_speech/lis ... -12-24-20/

Nice, just gave you a follow on LB!

[kongs_speech]

^Nice showing for Under the Sun of Satan!

There's one scene in that film that haunted me for days. I was so shaken by

Spoiler

Sandrine Bonnaire's suicide

that I was depressed for a while. I have to give a high ranking to a film that powerful. I have a few Pialat films left to see, but I'd be very surprised if they top it.

Sat down on Christmas Eve and made a new top 100. I imagine it will look very different a year from now, but it's certainly the best list I've ever had and very accurate to my taste.

https://letterboxd.com/kongs_speech/lis ... -12-24-20/

Nice, just gave you a follow on LB!

Thank you! I believe I've followed you back. My page is nothing amazing, but I do write a lot of reviews.

[kongs_speech]

Two updates in the list, including at the top. I know the #1 film is very recent, but I watched it twice to be sure and am very confident in my decision.

01. Promising Young Woman
02. The Godfather Part II
03. The Last Temptation of Christ
04. All That Jazz
05. Daisies
06. Pierrot le fou
07. 2001: A Space Odyssey
08. Heaven's Gate
09. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
10. Synecdoche, New York

[matthewscott8]

Very awkward to reduce to 10 but here goes:

1. Le soulier de satin / The Satin Slipper (1985 - Manoel de Oliveira)
2. The Tree of Life (2011 - Terrence Malick)
3. Limite (1931 - Mario Peixoto)
4. Monsieur Verdoux (1947 - Charles Chaplin)
5. Viskningar och rop / Cries and Whispers (1972 - Ingmar Bergman)
6. The Saga of Anatahan (1953 - Josef von Sternberg)
7. Les Maîtres du temps (1982 - René Laloux)
8. Les enfants du paradis / Children of Paradise (1945 - Marcel Carné)
9. Peau d'âne / Once Upon a Time (1970 - Jacques Demy)
10. Vertigo (1958 - Alfred Hitchcock)

[matthewscott8]

9) The Deluge (1974)

this one is the second part of a trilogy in literary terms. Would i have to find the first part, or filmically does it start at part 2?

[outdoorcats]

Very awkward to reduce to 10 but here goes:

1. Le soulier de satin / The Satin Slipper (1985 - Manoel de Oliveira)
2. The Tree of Life (2011 - Terrence Malick)
3. Limite (1931 - Mario Peixoto)
4. Monsieur Verdoux (1947 - Charles Chaplin)
5. Viskningar och rop / Cries and Whispers (1972 - Ingmar Bergman)
6. The Saga of Anatahan (1953 - Josef von Sternberg)
7. Les Maîtres du temps (1982 - René Laloux)
8. Les enfants du paradis / Children of Paradise (1945 - Marcel Carné)
9. Peau d'âne / Once Upon a Time (1970 - Jacques Demy)
10. Vertigo (1958 - Alfred Hitchcock)

I've seen 6 of your top 10, a record for me! They're mostly shared favorites as well.

Did you ever watch Hou's The Assassin? I'm bad at giving recommendations, but there you go.

[Tim2460]

Two updates in the list, including at the top. I know the #1 film is very recent, but I watched it twice to be sure and am very confident in my decision.

01. Promising Young Woman
02. The Godfather Part II
03. The Last Temptation of Christ
04. All That Jazz
05. Daisies
06. Pierrot le fou
07. 2001: A Space Odyssey
08. Heaven's Gate
09. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
10. Synecdoche, New York

I Didn't heard about Promising Young Woman...

Watchlisted it

[Onderhond]

You'll start hearing about it soon enough. The film is out and about and it's the kind that will (deservedly) get some hype over the coming weeks/months.

[Lakigigar]

1. Suspiria (1977)
2. The Neon Demon (2016)
3. Kreuzweg (2014)
4. Respire (2014)
5. Home (2016)
6. Mandy (2018)
7. Blade Runner (1982)
8. Assassination Nation (2018)
9. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
10. Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (2003)