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

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.)

Close-Up is a very moving film. Other than that, Life and Nothing More or This is Not a Film, perhaps? The House is Black is only fifteen minutes long.

I need to see nine of these. Histoire(s) was kinda great, the section on neo-realism was oddly moving.

I've seen half of the 50. A large number of them require one to deliberately seek them out, so anyone not dedicated to classic-film viewing is going to miss out on many of them. Of course, that is why these lists are made - to prod you into seeing the ones you've missed.

I'd choose Red River too as the best intro into westerns. Whether you applaud it or not, the western starts to get more and more self-conscious from The Gunfighter/High Noon/Shane onward, into The Searchers and beyond, and I wouldn't start there. Red River's great in a very classical, unselfconscious way.

Clementine 2 years earlier tho.

No excuse, haven't seen it. Don't chastise me, Sidney.

'liberty valance' is my favorite ford western by a long way, but it's sort of a 'last hurrah' for ford westerns you might get more out of it if you try a few of the older ones first. i remember 'fort apache' being pretty great. i have fond memories of 'she wore a yellow ribbon,' which seemed to be on AMC every week when i was a teenager.

SO you might get more out of it, i meant to write.

seven samurai is top 5 for me, the searchers made me barf, but WHO GIVES A SHIT this list is almost as tedious as seeing the same film jerkwads do their pantomine for the 80 billionth time on ile. its like if ilm was marcello carlin (morbs) the lex (eric h) and mark g (clemenza) talking about mojo lists for all eternity then commencing to jo to christgau or whoever the choon equivalent of pauline kael is. if i never see another 'discussion' about her fifty year old 'opinions' on here i will die happy. take it to blogspot already!!

so glad you could stop by and play our game

That is one nutty hospital.

if you're saying "fuck a canon" i agree with you Matt P but if you're saying this isn't a list of amazing films then you crazy

4

I read the list, have seen some of these films, life is too long to have seen all these already, let's keep some good stuff for later hey?

hmm.....

eh?

you can see all 50 and keep other good stuff for later (and there are many)

Yeah, I suppose so.

I'm the same with music, I discover things every year that other people would expect me to have used up / worn out, like a couple years ago I decided "Physical Grafitti" and "Axis: Bold as love" were worth checking out for the first time.

me too

but my ability to continue listening to a new record for a long time, even if it's great, is shortened. lack of patience and time i guess.

life's too short not to see some of these as many times as possible

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.

This sounds odd to me, because despite it's length SS is not really "slow movie", and it's pretty entertaining from beginning to the end. What's the thing that has stopped you from watching it all the way through?

those picks for iranian gateway films are crazy imo the one you want is jafar panahi's Offside - quite fast, gently funny, extremely accessible. & it's a suberb film

itt Matt P coughs up his regularly scheduled hairball

the lex (eric h)

I have never once caused half a kitchen to go up in flames by opening up a can of soda.