Harvey put this link up about black and white films which I found interesting. They are always putting up lists about the top 100 greatest films/songs/elephants ever and rarely do we agree with their choices but I thought I would do a quick list decade by decade of my top 5 - feel free to disagree or propose your own!
1930's & 40's
1: The Maltese Falcon
2: The Public Enemy
3: Little Caesar
4: A Night At The Opera
1950's
1: The Night of the Hunter
2: The Quiet Man
3: On The Waterfront
4: Singing in the Rain
5: North by Northwest
1960's
1: 2001: A Space Odyssey
2: Butch Cassidey & The Sundance Kid
3: Planet of the Apes
4: The Magnificent Seven
5: The Good The Bad and the Ugly
1970's
1: Star Wars
2: The Godfather and The Godfather II
3: Alien
4: The Long Goodbye
The 1980's
1: The Shining
2: Heathers
3: Raiders of the Lost Ark
4: Akira
5: Blade Runner
1990's
1: Pulp Fiction
2: Seven
3: Edward Scissorhands
4: Saving Private Ryan
5: Schindler's List
I am hesitant to do 2000's. It's not over yet, and these things are always best looked at with time and distance. How many times has a film come out and a critic or someone you know told you it's the best film they have seen this year? How often does it turn out to be a damp squib?
If I had to pick recent ones I have enjoyed they would be:
Good Night and Good Luck which is flawed historically (I do check my facts) with the emphasis it puts on these events to bring an end to the McCarthy era witch hunts but serves as a timely reminder that media should be an independant medium that reports unbiased coverage.
Unforgiven due to it's masterful storytelling and the portrayal of complex characters that are neither good nor bad, just people.
Sin City which as an adaptation of a series of graphic novels managed to remain true to its source materials. The style, the performances, the sets and direction were all first class and as a testament Sally and I sat there throughout the whole film and hardly said a word to one another.
Jarhead for being a war film with no war. It didn't tell us that the war was good or bad, but did show us that there are always more complex human issues at work when people are thrust into a situation that they will never be prepared for.
Show me your choices!
Posted by AlexC at March 1, 2006 04:00 PM