Which--or at Least How Many--of Sight and Sound's Top 50 Films Have You Not Seen?

By absolutely no popular demand whatsoever, John Simon's pantheon circa 1967 (from Private Screenings): Smiles of a Summer Night, Les Enfants du Paradis, Forbidden Games, Kanal, The Rules of the Game, The White Sheik, I Vitelloni, L'avventura, The Seven Samurai, The Naked Night, and, a sop to the rubes, Citizen Kane. Films I associate him with from subsequent books: Badlands, Swept Away, Melvin and Howard...I'd have to check back; he didn't go overboard very often.

Back to Rules of the Game... Kael put it well when she said that the thrill of this film is that it seems to unfold right in front of you. It's so spontaneous and alive that its formal perfection is dazzling to see. For me it's also about the perfect arrangement of the final scenes, from the furious energy of the party to the grace and melancholy of the ending.

the movie takes its cue from Dalio and the maid's performance: smiling, flustered, unable to be serious for a moment.

Effervescence isn't incredibly high up on my list of qualities I seek in movies, but Rules does it so impressively that, yes, it's clearly one of the all-time greats.

I have seen 37 of them. These I haven't seen:

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
L’Atalante
Au hasard Balthazar
Persona
Le Mépris
Ordet
Shoah
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles
Sátántangó
Journey to Italy
Gertrud
Histoire(s) du cinéma
Ugetsu monogatari

pretty stoked to have seen exactly half!

I just biked to the library and picked up Singin in the Rain, Au Hasard, Stalker, Citizen Kane, and L'Avventura (and also Carrie, Andrei Rublev, Ma Vie En Rose, Streetcar Named Desire, and Feuillade's Fantômas). We'll see how many I can watch before they're due back in a week.

I think the only Ozu I've seen is Good Morning and I loved it so much; I don't know if anything else can top it.

Also, Who Are You, Polly Magoo? Is better than anything Godard ever wanked out.

My number went down by one this morning --
http://archive.org/details/ChelovekskinoapparatomManWithAMovieCamera

39

OK, I just realized my number is 30 because I am dummmmm -- one of the films I'd seen, but only knew it by its English title. Durrr.

Rented out Shoah today, so, with resolve, coffee, and another three weeks of vacation, I'll be down to seven. I'm going to knock them off my list one by one, like Jeanne Moreau in The Bride Wore Black.

I've seen about half of them, though I saw a lot of them a long time ago (i.e. in lolcollege) and don't remember much about them.

***Spoiler*** sled ***Spoiler***

***Spoiler***Russian People Doing Things***Spoiler***

That's another out the way.

I'll resist the temptation to go through the whole list, but you can have some fun with this.

***Spoiler*** ambiguous and enigmatic ***Spoiler***

That covers quite a few.

***Spoiler*** barn > cows > mud > barn ***Spoiler***

***Spoiler*** Jeanne drops a spoon on the kitchen floor. ***Spoiler***

***Spoiler*** Jeanne drops a spoon on the kitchen floor. ***Spoiler***

Damn it, I was going to watch that this weekend!

***Spoiler***Italian Chick Doesn't Get Back On Boat***Spoiler***

***Spoiler*** Singin' in the rain ***Spoiler***

hahaha

***spoiler***buster keaton looks sad***spoiler***

Surprised I've seen nearly all of them apart from:

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Au hasard Balthazar
Le Mépris
Shoah
The General
Some Like It Hot
Play Time
Close-Up
Histoire(s) du cinéma
City Lights

'city lights' is probably gone from the top 10 forever, which is a total bummer for me.

I saw Rules of the Game a couple years ago. Good movie, but it didn't wow me or anything.

― Trewster Dare (jaymc), Thursday, August 2, 2012 12:27 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4AeXMEIeNI

Seven months later, I'm inching forward--I've now seen Shoah, Satantango, and Playtime, with Mirror, Metropolis, Journey to Italy, Gertrud, and Close-Up still to go. I've still got another nine-plus years before the list changes.

I need to get back to this. I'm up to 41.1. (Didn't make it very far into Histoires du Cinema).

Okay--I'm dropping myself to 42.7 to account for parts of Potemkim, Contempt, and a few others where I nodded off for a time.

Contempt, i can't blame you

Potemkin is, like 69 minutes long cranked at 24fps, isn't it?

Potemkin is so good.

I've drifted off during eight-minute experimental films, and stayed alert for Berlin Alexanderplatz. It's often more to do with circumstances than the film with me.

I'm an insomniac so falling asleep during a movie is not gonna happen.

Oh now I haven't seen 27 of these (it was 30 initially!)

i haven't seen 18 -- highest one i'm still missing is 'tokyo story,' shamefully enough. i have a feeling i'm never gonna be in the mood for 'satantango.'

last time i hadn't seen 36 now i have seen 34 (16 to go)

i have seen five of the films on the list, and enjoyed one (taxi driver)

15. Late Spring
19. Mirror
29= Shoah (watched around 2 hours then gave up)
35= Sátántangó
41. Journey to Italy
42= Pather Panchali
42= Gertrud
42= Close-Up
48= Histoire(s) du cinéma

I have 14 to go (though, to be honest, I'm never going to watch Histoires):

The Searchers
Man with a Movie Camera
Battleship Potemkin
Contempt
Shoah
Bicycle Thieves
Sátántangó
Journey to Italy
Pather Panchali
Gertrud
Pierrot le fou
The Battle of Algiers
Histoire(s) du cinéma
City Lights

i have a feeling i'm never gonna be in the mood for 'satantango.'

Feel the same way about Seven Samurai, which is I'm positive always going to be the highest ranking movie I've never seen in its entirety.

Haven't seen 25 of these. Three of them I've started watching but turned off before the halfway point for one reason or another.

Have a feeling the last one I'll ever see is Voyage to Italy.

Kinda surprised with myself. Only ones I haven't seen are:

Shoah
Satantango
Journey to Italy
Histoire(s) du cinéma*

*I actually own this, but still haven't seen the last two episodes or so. LOVE what I've seen, but it takes a certain mood.

Random thoughts (do not read if you hate me)

* Haven't seen 31 of these films--would have seen more if I hadn't blown off seasons of Italian neorealism or Japanese actresses at the National Gallery.
* I have knee-jerk reactions against Iranian films, and Westerns. Can anyone recommend "gateway" films for these genres?

A Moment of Innocence
Red River / My Darling Clementine

A Moment of Innocence seems hardly a "gateway" film.

Gateway western is Assault on Precinct 13.

One of Mann's westerns with Jimmy Stewart, maybe.

If those don't work, Paint Your Wagon.

Among Iranian films, what's more broadly appealing? The White Balloon?

Damn, you are really pushing the Hawks baiting, honeybunch. (But I am envisioning you and Madonna in a remake of Destry Rides Again.)