Sight and Sound 2022 Top 20

My Hitchcock top five today:

Notorious
Strangers on a Train
Rear Window
Sabotage
Psycho

2001 slander made me pull the trigger for it

_To the question of why I’ve never seen Seven Samurai, the answer is I don’t want to_


I admire this decisiveness, sort of, but I'm a slave to polls of this kind, especially if they're consensus-based and I'm familiar with most of the entries already. I'd have to have a big prejudice against a film I haven't seen on a list like this not to add it to my informal "should watch" list.

Cannot believe ppl are questioning Mifune when there is a Marlon Brando "performance" in here.

xp: funnily enough I love the role Seven Samurai plays in Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai, where the single mother looks to show the film to her son as a father figure substitute.

Apocalypse Now is an enjoyable enough movie I guess but the thought of it being in somebody's top 200 of anything is just boggling my mind

It's ok, when it's on TV I will watch an hour of it.

depending on the day it would be de jeu, searchers or dielman. today it's renoir.

Might vote for Cléo to be annoying

It's not as annoying as not watching Seven Samurai because you've been traumatised by film bro polls.

tbf it's not the best Kurosawa or the best samurai movie even

It wouldn't be in my top 20 or my favourite Kurosawa, but it's so much more fun than watching Americans go on about Apocalypse now as a Vietnam War 'statement'.

as i say AN to me is the most ridiculous entry - maybe the only ridiculous entry - in the list. how many 18 year old boys vote in this thing?

Twenty-one-year-old film bros are worse than 18-year-olds.

it's all a long distant memory to me

I prefer yojimbo and hidden fortress to seven samurai but that doesn't make it anything close to mediocrity

I think Ikiru should be the consensus pick, less of the trad masc concerns and also a better intro as not four hours long. That said I do love SS and if this was a best ever director poll I think Kurosawa would be my guy.

I'm terrible with Kurusawa, usually I always rewatch his samurai movies that I've seen umpteen times already rather than his more subtle masterpieces, but his samurai movies rule so much!

We all love Kurosawa. It's settled! *bangs gavel*

Finally managed to score a copy of the mag, a single solitary copy in McColl's in Govan! Citizen Kane cover - of course I wanted the Jeanne Dielman, but the mag does reproduce this amazing pic as a full page:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGMdzURWwAErD7r.jpg

They give a selection of the director ballots only, no critics. Good lists - by which I mean, introduced me to films I'd not heard of before - from Khalik Allah, Radu Jude, Alexandre Koberidze, Alice Rohrwacher, Peter Strickland, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. An all-French list from Wes Anderson with some interesting choices. Fun list from Terence Davies, including two Doris Day films. Wouldn't have expected Peter Greenaway to choose Blade Runner.

Nice! Love that picture!

Really want to vote for something that includes jokes, which narrows things down pretty severely

seven samurai it is

Ikiru is pish, Dersu Uzala is my kurosawa joint

I haven't seen that one, and of his late stuff only seen Kagemusha and Ran - so some serious gaps there.

I like Dreams too, only seen 6 or 7 myself

there was a feature on bbc radio about the Rashomon influence on modern tv drama, it had the opposite effect of interesting me in watching any of this stuff or even the original again!

They're doing the complete Kurosawa at the BFI right now. I caught One Wonderful Sunday - Kurosawa does Capra kinda, doesn't entirely work but there's some good stuff in there. At one point the female protagonist breaks the fourth wall and starts begging the viewers to clap for her husband and for all the young couples trying to make a living in postwar Japan, they need the help. No cunt clapped.

all clapped out in the UK

every time someone types "influence" mark s gets his wings

We all love Kurosawa. It's settled! *bangs gavel*

Ope sorry, my gavel broke

Study, study, screen, screen, or bonk bonk on the head!

Lol, Alfred.

Really curious about Terence Davies’s list, especially the two Doris Days.

I voted Vertigo. My relationship to it was pretty organic thankfully. Bought a vhs tape at around 17 without ever having seen it before, or very many classic movies at all, and became obsessed without totally understanding why. Probably almost wore out that tape. Only later did I discover becoming obsessed with Vertigo was practically a cliche. But that’s where my love of movies started and it’s pretty much the experience I’m always hoping to have again every time I go to a movie.

I’ll go to bat for Apocalypse Now! I mean, in that I think it’s great, not top 20 of all time great though.

2001 probably one of the funnier options here?

I use the first 10 minutes of Apocalypse Now because the match cuts, fades, sound design, and POV storytelling lend themselves to that sort of context.

Use them in class, that is.

When I talk or think about Kubrick I almost place 2001 in mental brackets, it’s so, ahem, monolithic, that I unconsciously shunt it off to the side when contemplating the killing, the shining, paths of glory, eyes wide shut, etc. But I do love it. I’m sorry but HALs death is an astonishing moment, dancing spaceships, the light show, the star child, it’s just a fun fucking movie.

I watched the end of In the Mood for Love (another movie I’ve watched too many times) and I’ll be damned if the ending sequence didn’t fucking floor me for the first time in years.

I'm digging your posts, ryan.

I took my mom to lunch yesterday and talked about these moves. There’s a famous story in my family that my dad took my mom to see 2001 on their first anniversary. She hates it to this day.

I described Jeanne Dielman to her and she immediately went home and watched it. Got some amusing text messages.

Every time I think I'm skeptical of 2001 I watch it again and it's always great. Most recently watched it with the kids, who — despite being raised on MCU/new Star Wars/etc — were totally engrossed. It's not a personal favorite or a movie that does much for me emotionally, but it is a stellar (ha) piece of filmmaking.

Makes me wish for his Napoleon movie

Maybe part of the issue is that with almost all his other movies you can kinda have this personal relationship to it, your own take, etc….but 2001 belongs to everyone, for better or worse. I can’t imagine it being anyone’s “favorite” movie, or even favorite Kubrick.

I'm going to hold off on trying it again until I can see it on the big screen.

One of the repertory theatres near here is showing Jeanne Dielman in a few weeks. Gonna be lit.

Anyone doubtful of Seven Samurai should just watch the final battle. There’s this one long tracking shot looking outward from inside some buildings that’s just exhilarating.

Also, the totally deflated feeling afterwards at what should be their moment of triumph seems to come from a very deep place in Kurosawa.

I'm part of this and am excited.

Really want to vote for something that includes jokes, which narrows things down pretty severely

A guy at a screening of Beau Travail burst out laughing at the dancing in the final scene, otherwise you might want to stick to Singin' in the Rain.

Makes me wish for his Napoleon movie

Just multiply Barry Lyndon by Eyes Wide Shut and add Pacino.

Godard only appears here in his silent-film cameo in the Varda film; I suspect this is Fate punishing him for not answering the door when she came to visit him in Faces Places.