SCFZ 6th Annual Top 100 Poll!

[flip]

Time again for the annual SCFZ top 100 films poll! This poll is to determine our community's favourite 100 films. Please read before posting a ballot:

- all films are eligible, short or long, widely seen or not
- tv series are not eligible, but tv movies are, and anything in a grey area is, so if you think you might need to ask, it's probably fine

How to participate :

- post a ballot of your favourite 50 films. The ballot need not be ranked at all, but (partial) ranking makes for a better poll, so ranking is strongly encouraged. If you would like to (partly) rank your ballot, separate it into 'tiers' or 'blocks' in any of the following arrangements:

- broken into five 'tiers', of 10 films each: i.e. in a 10/10/10/10/10 split, scoring: 5-4-3-2-1 pts
- broken into three 'tiers', in a 10/20/20 split: 4.6/3.2/2 pts
- broken into two tiers: 25/25, scoring 4-2 pts
- one unranked tier of 50 films: 3 points per film

- If you want to, you can also vote for an additional five films (or less), in addition to the fifty above. Put these at the top of your ballot - these films will get 6 points each, so will get the most points of all. The idea is to give at least some help to films that won't have been seen by everyone, which always puts those films at a disadvantage in this kind of poll. This rule didn't serve its purpose last year, because some people just used it to give extra points to films so widely seen they don't need any additional support. So I'm introducing a very mild condition this year: you can include films from the past 20 years that have less than 10,000 views on letterboxd, and earlier films (pre-2000) with less than 5000 views on letterboxd in this tier

- So a standard ballot will include 50 films, and a ballot with the extra tier will include 55 films in total.

- Ballots shorter than 50 films are fine, but they should be unranked, and can't include the bonus tier.

Formatting your Ballot

It takes an enormous amount of time to tally a poll this size, but the work is greatly reduced when everyone formats their ballots the same way. Please follow the formatting guidelines below:

- for each film, list the title, followed by the director's name and year (in parentheses, separated by a comma), using capital letters to begin words and names unless the original film title or director does not use capital letters, so in this format:

Yogi Bear (Eric Brevig, 2010)

- please (please!) use English titles *only* (I don't also want another title) when the English title is in common use in English-speaking film circles. Use foreign-language titles only for films which normally go by those foreign-language titles when discussed in English. So please write:

A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)

and not

A Separation / Jodaí-e Nadér az Simín (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)

or anything similar to that. But something like this would be fine:

Sud (Chantal Akerman, 1999)

since that's the film's most common title, even if it's not in English.

- please do not accent any characters, even when accents are normally used outside of English. Accented characters make it hard for me to search for duplicate votes when some people use them and some don't, so please write Rene Clement, and not René Clément, for example

When I've tallied these polls in the past, I've probably spent half of my time reformatting ballots that don't follow the formatting guidelines. I'm probably going to ask people to resubmit incorrectly formatted ballots this year.

Last Year's Ballots and Results:

greennui created an extremely useful directory of all of our past polls, including our annual top 100 polls. So if you've voted in the past, you won't need to make a ballot from scratch (unless you want to of course!) -- you can find your old ballots at the links in this thread:

https://scfzforum.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=475

[flip]

There's one very minor rule change from last year. If it's overly controversial, I'll change it, but I've added a condition on the 'bonus tier' of five films people are allowed to add to the top of their ballot. Last year, enough people used it to vote for films like 2001 and Vertigo that it didn't serve its purpose. So this year, only films with less from the 2000s with less than 10k letterboxd views, or films from pre-2000 with less than 5k views, are eligible for that tier (the distinction because on letterboxd, recent films have tons more views than older films on average, so a 2015 film with 9000 views is probably about as 'obscure' as a 1950 film with 1000 views). If the thresholds don't seem appropriate (I settled on them very non-scientifically ) I'm open to changing them.

[flip]

Deadline for the poll - after everyone who wants to vote has voted, but as a rough guideline, I'd probably want to close the poll by the end of this month

[Roscoe]

Can I put in a vote for ditching the thresholds for the bonus tier. They serve no purpose beyond preventing us from putting films we like in there, and just wind up over-complicating the procedure. How about we just agree that if you're putting the likes of 2001 or VERTIGO in the bonus tier then you're doing it wrong, and should reconsider.

[brian d]

Can I put in a vote for ditching the thresholds for the bonus tier. They serve no purpose beyond preventing us from putting films we like in there, and just wind up over-complicating the procedure. How about we just agree that if you're putting the likes of 2001 or VERTIGO in the bonus tier then you're doing it wrong, and should reconsider.

but if they're films you like that are well-seen wouldn't they end up in the top 50 list you just made? if you ditch the threshold then you're just making a top 55 list instead of a top 50. my own preference would be to just say it's for under seen films you want to highlight but flip gets to arbitrarily and silently decide if the films are in the spirit of the rule and if anyone complains about his decision they don't get to vote next year.

[Roscoe]

my own preference would be to just say it's for under seen films you want to highlight but flip gets to arbitrarily and silently decide if the films are in the spirit of the rule and if anyone complains about his decision they don't get to vote next year.

...which is pretty much what I thought I was suggesting, absent the suggestion that flip can decide on what defines "underseen."

[Curtis, baby]

personally i like the rule but i'd take it way further. my fav movie, Kings of the Road, would be eligible as it has 4.4k views on lboxd. i don't need to highlight Kings of the Road, for sure. i think something like 2k/1k would work. i'll probably limit myself to that. but i also think it should be flip's call, he does the tabulating work

[brian d]

sorry if i was unclear before, i'm in favor of an enforcement mechanism for the extra tier. i just like the idea of flip being capricious about it but if it's a vote cut-off that seems fine too.

[flip]

i don't really like setting rules in the first place, and don't want to have to judge somewhat arbitrarily what is eligible for the bonus tier. the one advantage of thresholds is that they're objective, but there are disadvantages to them as well - they're annoying to verify for voters, and annoying to check when tabulating. so i'm happy to dispense with them.

so i thought about how to better articulate the purpose of the top tier, and i could replace the threshold wording above with this instead: the top tier is intended for films voters think would get more support in this poll if more scfz'ers had seen them

as a consequence, it serves two purposes - it levels the playing field a tiny bit for underseen films (they get one extra point by virtue of being in that tier, which is not a big difference) and for me, the more interesting thing - it also lets each voter highlight a few films they think other scfz members might like.

[Curtis, baby]

Soft Fiction (Chick Strand)
You Take Care Now (Ann Marie Fleming, 1989)
Origins of the 21st Century (Jean-Luc Godard, 2000)
Skid Row (Allan King, 1956)
Alone in the Wilderness (Dick Proenneke/Bob Swerer Jr./Bob Swerer Sr., 2004)

Kings of the Road (Wim Wenders, 1976)
Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (Éric Rohmer, 1987)
Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki, 2004)
The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971)
Small Change (François Truffaut, 1976)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)
They Live by Night (Nicholas Ray, 1948)
Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977)
Play Time (Jacques Tati, 1967)

Slacker (Richard Linklater, 1991)
Good Morning (Yasujiro Ozu, 1959)
Pauline at the Beach (Éric Rohmer, 1983)
Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1973)
The Sword of Doom (Kihachi Okamoto, 1966)
Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961)
La belle captive (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1983)
Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)
Shadows in Paradise (Aki Kaurismäki, 1986)
Oslo, August 31st (Jaochim Trier, 2011)

Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993)
Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)
The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927)
Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
Neighbors (Edward F. Cline/Buster Keaton, 1920)
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013)
Il posto (Ermanno Olmi, 1961)
Requiem for a Heavyweight (Ralph Nelson, 1962)
Gertrud (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1964)

Faust (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2011)
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates, 1973)
La jetee (Chris Marker, 1962)
Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2014)
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972)
Downhill Racer (Michael Ritchie, 1969)
Remorques (Jean Gremillon, 1941)
Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi, 1962)
Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971)
Walking the Streets of Moscow (Georgiy Daneliya, 1964)

Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
A Cottage on Dartmoor (Anthony Asquith, 1929)
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (Jonas Mekas, 2000)
Young Torless (Volker Schlondorff, 1966)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma, 2019)
Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950)
Under the Roofs of Paris (Rene Clair, 1930)
Forbidden Games (Rene Clement, 1952)
Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)

[greennui]

I've decided to only include recent favourites, films watched during my current film watching phase that began 4 years ago. Kinda went for one film per director except I couldn't pick just one of the Ruiz's.

https://letterboxd.com/greennui/list/top-55/

City of Pirates (Raul Ruiz, 1983)
Hindered (Stephen Dwoskin, 1974)
Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972)
Two in the Shadow (Mikio Naruse, 1967)
Brutal Ardour (Manuel Huerga, 1978)

Edvard Munch (Peter Watkins, 1974)
Du côté d’Orouët (Jacques Rozier, 1971)
Model Shop (Jacques Demy, 1969)
Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu, 1948)
Manuel on the Island of Wonders (Raul Ruiz, 1984)
Earth Light (Guy Gilles, 1970)
The Other Side of the Underneath (Jane Arden, 1972)
The Song of the Scarlet Flower (Teuvo Tulio, 1938)
Nostos: The Return (Franco Piavoli, 1989)
The Last Dive (Joao Cesar Monteiro, 1992)

A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991)
Manila in the Claws of Light (Lino Brocka, 1975)
Drowning by Numbers (Peter Greenway, 1988)
The Aviator’s Wife (Eric Rohmer, 1981)
My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava, 1936)
Four Nights of a Dreamer (Robert Bresson, 1971)
Such a Pretty Little Beach (Yves Allegret, 1949)
Marius (Alexander Korda, 1931)
Fanny (Marc Allegret, 1932)
Cesar (Marcel Pagnol, 1936)

Transit (Christian Petzold, 2018)
The River (Frank Borzage, 1929)
Friday Night (Claire Denis, 2002)
The Meetings of Anna (Chantal Akerman, 1978)
Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)
Blood (Pedro Costa, 1989)
The Arch (Tang Shu Shuen, 1968)
Meantime (Mike Leigh, 1983)
On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate (Hong Sang-soo, 2002)
0.5 mm (Momoko Ando, 2014)

Van Gogh (Maurice Pialat, 1991)
First Name: Carmen (Jean-Luc Godard, 1983)
The Blackout (Abel Ferrara, 1997)
Nightfall (Fred Kelemen, 1999)
Simple Men (Hal Hartley, 1992)
Selva. Un portrait de Parvaneh Navaï (Maria Klonaris, 1982)
Le tempestaire (Jean Epstein, 1947)
The Nude Vampire (Jean Rollin, 1970)
Desperate Living (John Waters, 1977)
In the White City (Alain Tanner, 1983)

The Wind (Victor Sjostrom, 1928)
Great Freedom No. 7 (Helmut Käutner, 1944)
Violent Summer (Valerio Zurlini, 1959)
Femmes femmes (Paul Vecchiali, 1974)
Cluny Brown (Ernst Lubitsch, 1946)
Accident (Joseph Losey, 1967)
Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn, 1973)
Mahler (Ken Russell, 1974)
Far from Home (Sohrab Shahid Saless, 1975)
Visa de Censure n°X (Pierre Clementi, 1976)

I'll probably rearrange/swap films a-plenty before the deadline.

[brian d]

Behind the Door (Irvin Willat, 1919)
El Dorado (Marcel L'Herbier, 1921)
Os Faroleiros (Maurice Mariaud, 1922)
The Lighthouse Keepers (Jean Gremillon, 1929)
The Pearl (Henri d'Ursel, 1929)

Our Hospitality (Buster Keaton, John Blystone, 1923)
The Masseurs and a Woman (Hiroshi Shimizu, 1938)
Subida al cielo (Luis Bunuel, 1952)
Fire in Castilla (Jose Val del Omar, 1961)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Parajanov, 1965)
Medea (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1969)
A River Called Titash (Ritwik Ghatak, 1973)
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974)
Duvidha (Mani Kaul, 1975)
A Flor do Mar (Joao Cesar Monteiro, 1986)

City Girl (F.W. Murnau, 1930)
Ajantrik (Ritwik Ghatak, 1958)
The Cloud-Capped Star (Ritwik Ghatak, 1960)
Le Bonheur (Agnes Varda, 1965)
A Story Written with Water (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1966)
Arabian Nights (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1974)
Love on the Ground (Jacques Rivette, 1984)
The Draughtsman's Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982)
God's Comedy (Joao Cesar Monteiro, 1995)
The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)

Blind Husbands (Erich von Stroheim, 1919)
Asphalt (Joe May, 1929)
Finis Terrae (Jean Epstein, 1929)
Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha, 1964)
Dragon Inn (King Hu, 1967)
Fruit of Paradise (Vera Chytilova, 1970)
The Other Side of the Underneath (Jane Arden, 1972)
On the Silver Globe (Andrzej Zulawski, 1986)
Fidelity (Andrzej Zulawski, 2000)
Innocence (Lucille Hadzihalilovic, 2004)

Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)
Carnival in Flanders (Jacques Feyder, 1935)
The Enchanted Isles (Carlos Vilardebo, 1965)
The Arch (Tang Shu Shuen, 1968)
Vengeance of the Phoenix Sisters (Hung-Min Chen, 1968)
Ditirambo (Gonzalo Suarez, 1969)
A Touch of Zen (King Hu, 1971)
Nirmalyam (MT Vasudevan Nair, 1973)
Benilde, or the Virgin Mother (Manoel de Oliveira, 1975)
Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf (Leonardo Favio, 1975)

Coeur Fidele (Jean Epstein, 1923)
The Seashell and the Clergyman (Germaine Dulac, 1928)
L'Age d'Or (Luis Bunuel, 1930)
Ornamental Hairpin (Hiroshi Shimizu, 1941)
Cross of Love (Teuvo Tulio, 1946)
Charulata (Satyajit Ray, 1964)
Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (Dusan Makavejev, 1967)
Pirosmani (Giorgi Shengelaia, 1969)
Noroit (Jacques Rivette, 1976)
Silvestre (Joao Cesar Monteiro, 1981)

[Silga]

For now:

The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley, 1990)
Hyenas (Djibril Diop Mambety, 1992)
Affliction (Paul Schrader, 1997)
I'm Not Rappaport (Herb Gardner, 1996)
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Robert Ellis Miller, 1968)

Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Fargo (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, 1996)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)
Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)
The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)

L'Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934)
Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2012)
Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946)
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
American Gigolo (Paul Schrader, 1980)
The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990)
Seven Days in May (John Frankenheimer, 1964)

The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman, 1998)
Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)
Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes, 1976)
Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)
Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Fail-Safe (Sidney Lumet, 1964)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, 2007)
Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)

Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, 2012)
From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)
Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)
The Man Who Wasn't There (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, 2001)
The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin, 1940)

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005)
The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)
The Naked Kiss (Samuel Fuller, 1964)
Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton, 1996)
The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, 1964)
Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
The Big Lebowski (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, 1998)
The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
All the President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)

4 new films compared to last year's ballot.

[Umbugbene]

Bonus tier (I picked 5 great movies below 1000 views that I think many SCFZers would like):

A Day Off (Lee Man-hee, 1968) 517 views
Les felins (Rene Clement, 1964) 480 views
Once Upon a Time, Cinema (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1992) 319 views
Ladies in Retirement (Charles Vidor, 1941) 290 views
Seasons of Our Love (Florestano Vancini, 1966) 29 views

My top fifty as of 1 January 2020:

Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
La notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961)
Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)
Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
L'avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Nathalie Granger (Marguerite Duras, 1972)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)
Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
India Song (Marguerite Duras, 1975)

Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945)
Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1982)
Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Chase a Crooked Shadow (Michael Anderson, 1958)
Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)
Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
Holiday Inn (Mark Sandrich, 1942)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

L'eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
Les enfants terribles (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1950)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
L'immortelle (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1963)
In the City of Sylvia (Jose Luis Guerín, 2007)
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974)
The Moon in the Gutter (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1983)
Enemy (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)
Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000)
Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962)

Nosferatu the Vampyre (Werner Herzog, 1979)
Ugetsu monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Gertrud (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1964)
The Man Who Sleeps (Bernard Queysanne, 1974)
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967)
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Juliette, or the Key of Dreams (Marcel Carne, 1951)
The Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover (Peter Greenaway, 1989)
Querelle (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1982)

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
I Knew Her Well (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1965)
La nuit fantastique (Marcel L'Herbier, 1942)
Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)
Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981)
The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975)
The Man Who Left His Will on Film (Nagisa Oshima, 1970)
Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)
The Element of Crime (Lars von Trier, 1984)
Night Train (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1959)

[Holymanm]

Wait... so should I first make my top 50, and then pick 5 other movies for the bonus tier? Or should I just fill the bonus tier, if possible, with the obscurer movies from my top 50, just to give more points for those ones? Or either/or?

[Umbugbene]

I think it's up to you. Last year I did the latter, this year the former.

[flip]

Wait... so should I first make my top 50, and then pick 5 other movies for the bonus tier? Or should I just fill the bonus tier, if possible, with the obscurer movies from my top 50, just to give more points for those ones? Or either/or?

whatever you like

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

With the exception of my obscure favs top five, I decided to order this in chronological order, to give the oldies more of a chance. It also made ordering much easier that way!

The Irresistible Piano (Alice Guy, 1907)
Zapata's Gang (Urban Gad, 1914)
The Silver Bullet (Joseph H. Lewis, 1942)
The Man from Planet X (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1951)
My Young Auntie (Lau Kar-leung, 1981)

Leaving Jerusalem by Railway (Alexandre Promio, 1897)
The Impossible Voyage (Georges Melies, 1904)
Suffragette Demonstration in London (June 1910) (Theophile Pathe & Charles Pathe, 1910)
The Land Beyond the Sunset (Harold M. Shaw, 1912)
The Student of Prague (Paul Wegener, 1913)
Different from the Others (Richard Oswald, 1919)
The Oyster Princess (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919)
The Goat (Buster Keaton, 1921)
The Hands of Orlac (Robert Wiene, 1924)
Soft Shoes (Lloyd Ingraham, 1925)

The Magician (Rex Ingram, 1926)
Autumn Mists (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1929)
Little Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931)
Murders in the Rue Morgue (Robert Florey, 1932)
Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)
Hold Your Man (Sam Wood, 1933)
Stop That Noise (Dave Fleischer, 1935)
Happiness (Aleksandr Medvedkin, 1935)
Wife! Be Like a Rose! (Mikio Naruse, 1935)

Cheer Up (Leo Mittler, 1936)
Spare Time (Humphrey Jennings, 1939)
Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)
The Famous Sword Bijomaru (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1945)
Black Narcissus (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes! (William Nigh, 1948)
Bitter Rice (Giuseppe De Santis, 1949)
Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius, 1949)
Godzilla (Ishiro Honda, 1954)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955)

All the World's Memory (Alain Resnais, 1956)
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
A Kiss Before Dying (Gerd Oswald, 1956)
Horrors of the Black Museum (Arthur Crabtree, 1959)
Air Hostess (Yi Wen, 1959)
The Fellowship of the Frog (Harald Reinl, 1959)
Blueprint of Murder (Kihachi Okamoto, 1961)
The Slave (Sergio Corbucci, 1962)
Murder at the Gallop (George Pollock, 1963)
The Whip and the Body (Mario Bava, 1963)

Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964)
A Pistol for Ringo (Duccio Tessari, 1965)
Black Girl (Ousmane Sembene, 1966)
Flying Phantom Ship (Hiroshi Ikeda, 1969)
Fog Line (Larry Gottheim, 1970)
Super Inframan (Hua Shan, 1975)
The Contract (Michael Hui, 1978)
American Dreams (Lost and Found) (James Benning, 1984)
Yes, Madam! (Corey Yuen, 1985)
Switching Goals (David Steinberg, 1999)

[ralch]

Pell Grant 5:

Courage for Every Day (Evald Schorm, 1964)
White Mountains (Melis Ubukeyev, 1965)
The Red and the White (Miklos Jancso, 1967)
City of Contrasts (Djibril Diop Mambety, 1969)
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, 2008)

Tier 1:

Fallen Angel (Otto Preminger, 1945)
Kanal (Andrzej Wajda, 1957)
The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Memories of Underdevelopment (Tomas Gutierrez Alea, 1968)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)
Cria cuervos (Carlos Saura, 1976)
Sans soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)
Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997)

Tier 2:

Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936)
My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)
Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls, 1948)
Los olvidados (Luis Buñuel, 1950)
Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
Two English Girls (François Truffaut, 1971)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)

Tier 3:

The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)
The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
The Clock (Vincente Minnelli, 1945)
The Big Sky (Howard Hawks, 1952)
The Far Country (Anthony Mann, 1954)
The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
The House Is Black (Forough Farrokhzad, 1963)
Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)

Tier 4:

Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941)
Ritual in Transfigured Time (Maya Deren, 1946)
They Live by Night (Nicholas Ray, 1949)
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
Pather panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)
The Sorrow and the Pity (Marcel Ophuls, 1969)
Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
Tree of Knowledge (Nils Malmros, 1981)
Jacquot de Nantes (Agnes Varda, 1991)

Tier 5:

The Kid Brother (Harold Lloyd, Ted Wilde, J.A. Howe, Lewis Milestone; 1927)
High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)
La grande bouffe (Marco Ferreri, 1973)
Bilbao (Bigas Luna, 1978)
The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Ermanno Olmi, 1978)
The South (Fernando Solanas, 1988)
Unknown Pleasures (Jia Zhang-ke, 2002)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
Neighboring Sounds (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2012)

[FLABREZU]

All About Lily Chou-Chou (Shunji Iwai, 2001)
Summer's Tail (Wen-Tang Cheng, 2007)
Kontroll (Nimród Antal, 2003)
Love Letter (Shunji Iwai, 1995)
Take Care of My Cat (Jeong Jae-eun, 2001)

Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai, 1995)
2046 (Wong Kar-wai, 2004)
Your Name (Makoto Shinkai, 2016)
8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
Blue Spring (Toshiaki Toyoda, 2001)
The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)

Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow, 2004)
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (Hideaki Anno, 1997)
A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Jee-woon, 2003)
Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1974)
A Chinese Ghost Story (Ching Siu-Tung, 1987)

Baby Driver (Edgar Wright, 2017)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
Rainbow Song (Naoto Kumazawa, 2006)
Romantic Prelude (Naoto Kumazawa, 2009)
Harakiri (Masaki Kobayashi, 1962)
Small Change (François Truffaut, 1976)
My Right to Ravage Myself (Jeon Soo-il, 2005)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (Kim Ki-duk, 2003)
Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008)
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-ho, 2003)
House (Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, 1977)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2008)
Ong Bak (Prachya Pinkaew, 2003)
V for Vendetta (James McTeigue, 2005)
Unknown Pleasures (Jia Zhangke, 2002)
5 Centimters per Second (Makoto Shinkai, 2007)
In Bruges (Martin McDonagh, 2008)
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1984)

Last Life in the Universe (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, 2003)
Invisible Waves (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, 2006)
Singapore Dreaming (Colin Goh, Joyceln Woo Yen Yen, 2006)
Children of Paradise (Marcel Carné, 1945)
9 Souls (Toshiaki Toyoda, 2003)
The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Edgar Wright, 2010)
The World (Jia Zhangke, 2004)
Suzhou River (Lou Ye, 2000)
Sell Out! (Joon-han Yeo, 2008)

[flip]

for now, just pasting in my ballot from last year, will adjust later - edit: started adjusting a bit

The Mongols (Parviz Kimiavi, 1973)
Nostos: Il Ritorno (Franco Piavoli, 1990)
The Wonderful Country (Robert Parrish, 1959)
Manoel’s Destinies (Raoul Ruiz, 1984)
The Toth Family (Zoltan Fabri, 1969)

A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996)
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974)
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969)
Fire in Castilla (Jose Val del Omar, 1961)
The Good Fairy (William Wyler, 1935)
The Naked Dawn (Edgar Ulmer, 1955)
Ride the Pink Horse (Robert Montgomery, 1947)
L’Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983)
The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950)
Our Hospitality (Buster Keaton and John Blystone, 1923)

Ballad of Tara (Bahram Beizai, 1979)
Canyon Passage (Jacques Tourneur, 1946)
Woman on the Run (Norman Foster, 1950)
Khroustaliov, My Car! (Alexei German, 1998)
Viaggio in Italia (Roberto Rossellini, 1954)
Day of the Outlaw (Andre de Toth, 1959)
The Brick and the Mirror (Ebrahim Golestan, 1965)
Lucky Star (Frank Borzage, 1929)
The Sword of Doom (Kihachi Okamoto, 1966)
The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson, 1943)

Filantropica (Nae Caranfil, 2002)
Woman They Almost Lynched (Allan Dwan, 1953)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Parajanov, 1965)
Birds, Orphans and Fools (Juraj Jakubisko, 1969)
Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay, 1999)
Rosetta (Dardenne Brothers, 1999)
Spring Parade (Henry Koster, 1940)
Elegia (Zoltan Huszarik, 1966)
Ulzana’s Raid (Robert Aldrich, 1972)
Man from Del Rio (Harry Horner, 1956)

Innocent Sorcerers (Andrzej Wajda, 1960)
Blue Mountains, or Unbelievable Story (Eldar Shengelaya, 1983)
Die Puppe (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919)
The Burglar (Paul Wendkos, 1957)
Valley of the Bees (Frantisek Vlacil, 1968)
Hellzapoppin' (HC Potter, 1941)
Devils on the Doorstep (Jiang Wen, 2000)
Electra, My Love (Miklos Jancso, 1974)
Ms 45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981)
3 Women (Robert Altman, 1977)

Showdown (RG Springsteen, 1963)
Suddenly, One Day (Mrinal Sen, 1989)
The Asthenic Syndrome (Kira Muratova, 1989)
The Wishing Tree (Tenghiz Abuladze, 1976)
Reality (Quentin Dupieux, 2014)
Spring for the Thirsty (Yuri Ilyenko, 1965)
Good Time (Joshua and Ben Safdie, 2017)
Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr, 2000)
Le Collier Perdu de la Colombe (Nacer Khemir, 1991)
Smiley Face (Gregg Araki, 2007)

[Caracortada]

Grbavica (Jasmila Zbanic, 2006)
It’s a Free World... (Ken Loach, 2007)
Machuca (Andres Wood, 2004)
Ryan’s Daughter (David Lean, 1970)
Sons of the Desert (William A. Seitner, 1933)

Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936)
The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Juliet of the Spirits (Federico Fellini, 1965)
Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar, 2011)
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)

8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Blue Is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Jean de Florette (Claude Berri, 1986)
Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2007)
Manon des Sources (Claude Berri, 1986)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)

Belle de Jour (Luis Bunuel, 1967)
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)
Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2014)
High Heels (Pedro Almodovar, 1991)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Sex and Lucia (Julio Medem, 2001)
The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946)

Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
La Grande Vadrouille (Gerard Oury, 1966)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
Pauline at the Beach (Eric Rohmer, 1983)
The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin, 1940)
The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1982)
The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985)
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Day for Night (François Truffaut, 1974)
Girl with a Pearl Earring (Peter Webber, 2003)
I Want to Live! (Robert Wise, 1958)
Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983)
Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
The Children’s Hour (William Wyler, 1961)
The Remains of the Day (James Ivory, 1993)

[wba]

an unranked list of the 55 greatest movies in film history

highlighted 5

Torch Singer (Alexander Hall/George Somnes, 1933)
Love Letter (Seijun Suzuki, 1958)
The Travelling Ruffian (Masahiro Makino, 1958)
Rabbit in the Pit (Roger Fritz, 1968)
Angel Guts: Red Classroom (Chusei Sone, 1979)


The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924)
Docks of Hamburg (Erich Waschneck, 1928)
Anna and Elizabeth (Frank Wisbar, 1932)
Rough Diamond (Humberto Mauro, 1933)
Police Officer (Tomu Uchida, 1933)
Swing Time (George Stevens, 1936)
Condottieri (Luis Trenker/Werner Klingler, 1937)
Michelangelo (Curt Oertel, 1940)
Manon (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1949)
Merry-Go-Round (Zoltan Fabri, 1956)
The Girl from Flanders (Helmut Kautner, 1956)
Kisses (Yasuzo Masumura, 1957)
Monpti (Helmut Kautner, 1957)
Moderato cantabile (Peter Brook, 1960)
The Taste of Violence (Robert Hossein, 1961)
She and He (Susumu Hani, 1963)
Flora on the Sand (Ko Nakahira, Japan 1964)
Das Madchen mit dem Mini (Paul Milan, 1965)
The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds (Bert Williams, 1965)
Carmen from Kawachi (Seijun Suzuki, 1966)
Vulkan der hollischen Triebe (Peter Hauser, 1967)
Hang 'em High (Ted Post, 1968)
Nanami: The Inferno of First Love (Susumu Hani, 1968)
The Griller (George Moorse, 1968)
Aido: Slave of Love (Susumu Hani, 1969)
Running in Madness, Dying in Love (Koji Wakamatsu, 1969)
Road to Salina (Georges Lautner, 1970)
The Pacifist (Miklos Jancso, 1970)
Waterloo (Sergey Bondarchuk, 1970)
Le Mans (Lee H. Katzin, 1971)
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable (Shunya Ito, 1973)
Procession of Memories (Nasir Hussain, 1973)
Secret Chronicle: She Beast Market (Noboru Tanaka, 1974)
Wife to Be Sacrificed (Masaru Konuma, 1974)
The Story of Sin (Walerian Borowczyk, 1975)
Monika und die Sechzehnjahrigen (Charly Steinberger, 1975)
Shuffle (Sogo Ishii, 1981)
Second Sight (Dominik Graf, 1982)
Breathless (Jim McBride, 1983)
Staying Alive (Sylvester Stallone, 1983)
The Man from Majorca (Bo Widerberg, 1984)
Reckless (James Foley, 1984)
Alpha City (Eckhart Schmidt, 1985)
American Flyers (John Badham, 1985)
Phenomena (Dario Argento, 1985)
The Red Spectacles (Mamoru Oshii, 1987)
Top Model (Joe D'Amato, 1988)
As Tears Go By (Kar-wai Wong, 1988)
The Tune (Bill Plympton, 1992)
The Brown Bunny (Vincent Gallo, 2003)
Birth (Jonathan Glazer, 2004)
Beats Being Dead (Christian Petzold, 2011)

EDIT: My list is exactly the same as last year. Since I'm not an active cinephile anymore since April 2018, my taste hasn't changed or evolved that much. One new film I've seen came close to making my list: Very Chytilova's A Bagful of Fleas (1962) - but then I couldn't decide on a film that I would have to kick out for it. Maybe next year.

[Roscoe]

Extra Five
Housekeeping - Forsyth 1987
Chow Hound - Jones 1951
The Doll - Lubitsch 1919
The Parson's Widow - Dreyer 1920
Begone Dull Care - McLaren/Lambart 1949


The General - Keaton/Bruckman 1926
Chimes At Midnight - Welles 1965
Seven Samurai - Kurosawa 1954
8 1/2 - Fellini 1963
Fanny and Alexander - Bergman 1982
One Froggy Evening - Jones 1955
Local Hero - Forsyth 1983
Notorious - Hitchcock 1946
The Rules of the Game - Renoir 1939
Casablanca - Curtiz 1942

2001: A Space Odyssey - Kubrick 1968
A Hard Day's Night - Lester 1964
The Godfather I - Coppola 1972
The Godfather II - Coppola 1974
Die Nibelungen - Lang 1924
The Thief of Bagdad - Walsh/Fairbanks 1924
Heart of the World - Maddin 2000
Mothlight - Brakhage 1963
M. Hulot's Holiday - Tati 1953
Duck Amuck - Jones 1953

Inherent Vice - Anderson 2014
It's A Wonderful Life - Capra 1946
Lambchops - Roth/Burns & Allen 1929
Playtime - Tati 1967
Psycho - Hitchcock 1960
Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - Burton 2007
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - Gilliam 1988
The Wizard Of Oz - Fleming 1939
Topsy Turvy - Leigh 1999
Intolerance - Griffith - 1916

Stagecoach - Ford 1939
Lawrence of Arabia - Lean 1962
M - Lang 1931
Monty Python And The Holy Grail - Jones/Gilliam 1975
Barry Lyndon - Kubrick 1975
Pinocchio - Luske/Sharpsteen/Disney 1940
The Lord Of The Rings - Jackson 2001-03
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Hooper 1974
The Gold Rush - Chaplin 1924
Chuckles Bites The Dust episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show - Joan Darling 1974

The Shining -- Kubrick 1980
The Rabbit Of Seville - Jones 1950
Twentieth Century - Hawks 1934
The 400 Blows - Truffaut 1959
Big Business - Horne/McCarey 1929
Eraserhead - Lynch 1977
The Incredibles - Bird 2004
The Battle Of The Century - Bruckman 1927
Fantasia - Disney Etc. 1940
Dinner At Eight - Cukor 1933

As with last time -- these are the favorites, the ones that life cannot be lived without. A list of the Greatest would be rather different, and more international. Love me some SATANTANGO and all, but is it a favorite? I might revise here and there, but this is pretty much it.

2020 VERSION -- no changes so far. I'll think on it. THE IRISHMAN might go on there, as might PHANTOM THREAD -- don't judge.

[Mauries]

Work in progress, trying to refresh my ballot from last year(s). Also went for at least 10 female directors.
So far:

Extra 5:
Time Indefinite (Ross McElwee, 1993)
In Comparison (Harun Farocki, 2009)
Western (Valeska Grisebach, 2017)
0.5 mm (Momoko Ando, 2014)
The Browning Version (Anthony Asquith, 1951)

Tier 1
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (Jonas Mekas, 2000)
Edvard Munch (Peter Watkins, 1974)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Parajanov, 1965)
Road (Alan Clarke, 1987)
Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
Disintegration Loop 1.1. (William Basinski, 2001)
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972)
News From Home (Chantal Akerman, 1977)
La Libertad (Lisandro Alonso, 2001)
Nothing But a Man (Michael Roemer, 1964)

Tier 2
There’s Always Tomorrow (Douglas Sirk, 1956)
Il Posto (Ermanno Olmi, 1961)
Stage Door (Gregory La Cava, 1937)
The Green Ray (Eric Rohmer, 1986)
A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996)
Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)
Un Homme Qui Dort (Bernard Queysanne, 1974)
Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939)
The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (Roberto Rossellini, 1966)
At Sea (Peter Hutton, 2007)

Tier 3
Die Parallelstrasse (Ferdinand Khittl, 1962)
Day Of the Outlaw (Andre de Toth, 1959)
Bandits of Orgosolo (Vittorio de Seta, 1961)
Remorques (Jean Gremillon, 1941)
An Inn At Osaka (Heinosuke Gosho, 1954)
Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)
Cluny Brown (Ernst Lubitsch, 1946)
There Once Was A Singing Blackbird (Otar Iosseliani, 1970)
Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937)
Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick, 2015)

Tier 4
Pirosmani (Giorgi Shengelaia, 1969)
Menilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926)
Extraordinary Stories (Mariano Llinás, 2008)
Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984)
The Set-Up (Robert Wise, 1949)
Girlfriends (Claudia Weill, 1978)
Nowhere (Gregg Araki, 1997)
Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)
Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (Eric Rohmer, 1987)
La Cienega (Lucretia Martel, 2001)

Tier 5
U.S Go Home (Claire Denis, 1994)
Under The Bridges (Helmut Kautner, 1946)
Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016)
Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)
Alone in the Wilderness (Proenneke, Swerer, Swerer, 2004)
August in the Water (Gakuryu Ishii, 1995)
From the East (Chantal Akerman, 1993)
The Gleaners & I (Agnes Varda, 2000)
Mr. Thank You (Hiroshi Shimizu, 1936)
The Structure of Crystals (Krzystof Zanussi, 1969)

[rischka]

i'm so tired. maybe i can use my 50 from last year

[greennui]

i'm so tired. maybe i can use my 50 from last year

i shall cop out and post my ballot from last year

[sally]

i'm so tired. maybe i can use my 50 from last year

that deserves a hug.

i think about this poll every day and every day i want to put different things on it. fiendish test.

[rischka]

i'm so tired. maybe i can use my 50 from last year

i shall cop out and post my ballot from last year

LOL!

[liquidnature]

Will try to put something together soon! Have a lot going on right now, hard to find the time or energy at the moment.