All-Time Top 100 (2012 Edition)

I was invited to contribute my list of 20 favorite movies to a Muriels/Skandies best films poll, the results of which will be unveiled tomorrow. I intended to share my top 20 here, but of course my thoughts turned to the many movies that didn't quite make the final cut, so naturally, here's my updated 100 list. I've bolded the movies that would make up my top 10 (and look for some thoughts on my favorite movie, The Shining, courtesy of the Skuriels), but I decided to alphabetize the list this time; these are the movies at the very top of the heap, and at that point, it doesn't really matter whether a film is 36th or 74th; I love them all the same. According to Flickchart, I've seen close to 4500 movies, and it wouldn't take me very much effort to make a list of 500 or 1000 that I love; I think most of my fellow movie geeks could easily do the same. But we'll stick with 100, as the whole point of making a list is to make hard choices, boil things down to the movies I really can't imagine life without and, hopefully, start a conversation (hey, did you hear Sight and Sound ranked Vertigo above Citizen Kane?). So here it is, and you can check out the Skuriels' results here tomorrow.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)

Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)

All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979)

Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)

Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)

Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)

Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)

Belle de Jour (Luis Bunuel, 1967)

The Big Lebowski (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998)

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)

Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981)

Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)

Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)

Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)

Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)

Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)

Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)

The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

Creepshow (George A. Romero, 1982)

Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)

Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)

Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)

Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1996)

Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)

Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994)

8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)

El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970)

The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)

The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)

Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)

Fargo (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1996)

The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)

The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)

The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)

Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)

Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)

Inferno (Dario Argento, 1980)

Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)

Jules and Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962)

Kill Bill vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)

Kill Bill vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2004)

Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972)

The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988)

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)

Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962)

Macbeth (Roman Polanski, 1971)

Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)

The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976)

Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)

Miller’s Crossing (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1990)

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)

Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)

No Country For Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)

Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht (Werner Herzog, 1979)

Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1968)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)

Orpheus (Jean Cocteau, 1950)

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah, 1973)

Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)

Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974)

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)

Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)

Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998)

 

 Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)

Secretary (Steven Shainberg, 2002)

The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

Sid and Nancy (Alex Cox, 1986)

Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)

Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)

The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)

The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

True Romance (Tony Scott, 1993)

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)

Y tu mama tambien (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)

Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)