100 Films for the Ideal Cinematheque
Via Cahiers du Cinéma:
Seventy-eight film critics and historians — mostly from France or the Francophone world, apparently — among them screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, screenwriter-director Claude Miller, and author-documentarian, poll organizer, and editor of the book 100 Films pour une Cinemathèque Idéale Claude-Jean Philippe — have selected their top 100 films for the "ideal cinematheque." That is followed by a list featuring their picks for the top 50 filmmakers.
There are only two Best Picture Oscar winners in the list: The Godfather (1972) and, gasp, The Deer Hunter (1978). Not surprisingly, the list is dominated by auteurish Hollywood and French cinema titles. In other words: Nothing directed by Henry Hathaway, Michael Curtiz, William Wellman, Mitchell Leisen, William Wyler, W. S. Van Dyke, Julien Duvivier, Jean Delannoy, or René Clément. (George Cukor and Elia Kazan managed to be included for the bloated — but auteurish — A Star Is Born and America America, respectively.) And you’ll be hard-pressed to find "producer’s films" like Gone with the Wind or Rebecca or Casablanca in the list.
Among the silent films, only the most well-known, prestigious titles were included, e.g., Greed (1924), Battleship Potemkin (1925), The Wind (1928), City Lights (1931). That makes me wonder how many silents those critics and historians have actually watched — or even heard of.
The biggest surprise is probably the inclusion of Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955) as the #2 title, though I must admit that I’d never have expected to find Fritz Lang’s Moonfleet (1955) — which is actually quite enjoyable — anywhere in such a list, either.
No films from Africa were included. From Asia, there are a handful from Japan and one from India (the tedious The Music Room). From the Americas, the only non-Hollywood entry is Luis Buñuel’s Mexican melodrama El (1953), in my view one of the director’s very worst films. Australian and New Zealand films are nowhere to be found. And from Europe, there isn’t a single 100% British production in the list — John Huston’s beautiful The Dead comes closest — and nothing from Eastern Europe, excepting a few scattered Russian entries. Italy, Spain, Germany, and Sweden (the only Ingmar Bergman entry is Fanny and Alexander) are quite underrepresented, with — at most — a handful of films from each country. (Seventy-seven of the 100 films are either French or American productions or co-productions.)
Perhaps all those omissions prove nothing. On the other hand, perhaps they’re proof that French critics and historians are as narrow-minded and insular as their American counterparts.
See below:
Film Title (Director) Number of votes
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles) 48
The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton) 47
La Règle du jeu / The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir) 47
Sunrise (F. W. Murnau) 46
L’Atalante (Jean Vigo) 43
M (Fritz Lang) 40
Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly) 39
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock) 35
Les Enfants du Paradis / Children of Paradise (Marcel Carné) 34
The Searchers (John Ford) 34
Greed (Eric von Stroheim) 34
Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks) 33
To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch) 33
Tokyo monogatari / Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu) 29
Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard) 28
27 votes
Ugetsu monogatari / Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
The General (Buster Keaton)
Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau)
The Music Room (Satyajit Ray)
26 votes
Freaks (Tod Browning)
Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray)
La Maman et la Putain / The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache)
25 votes
The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin)
Il Gattopardo / The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais)
Die Büchse der Pandora / Pandora’s Box (G.W. Pabst)
North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)
Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
24 votes
Casque d’or / Golden Maria (Jacques Becker)
The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Moonfleet (Fritz Lang)
Madame de… / The Earrings of Madame De… (Max Ophuls)
Le Plaisir (Max Ophuls)
The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino)
23 votes
L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein)
Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
The Wind (Victor Sjöström)
22 votes
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman)
21 votes
The Crowd (King Vidor)
8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
La Jetée (Chris Marker)
Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard)
Le Roman d’un tricheur / The Story of a Cheat (Sacha Guitry)
20 votes
Amarcord (Federico Fellini)
La Belle et la Bête / Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau)
Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder)
Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli)
Gertrud (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
King Kong (Ernest B. Shoedsack and Merian C. Cooper)
Laura (Otto Preminger)
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
19 votes
Les 400 coups / The 400 Blows (François Truffaut)
La Dolce vita (Federico Fellini)
The Dead (John Huston)
Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch)
It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc / The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
18 votes
À bout de souffle / Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick)
La Grande illusion (Jean Renoir)
Intolerance (D. W. Griffith)
Partie de campagne / A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir)
Playtime (Jacques Tati)
Roma, città aperta / Open City (Roberto Rosselini)
Senso (Luchino Visconti)
Modern Times (Charles Chaplin)
Van Gogh (Maurice Pialat)
17 votes
An Affair to Remember (Leo McCarey)
Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovski)
The Scarlet Empress (Joseph von Sternberg)
Sansho, the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
Hable con ella / Talk to Her (Pedro Almodovar)
The Party (Blake Edwards)
Tabu (F. W. Murnau)
The Bandwagon (Vincente Minnelli)
A Star Is Born (George Cukor)
Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot / Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati)
16 votes
America America (Elia Kazan)
El (Luis Buñuel)
Kiss Me Deadly (Robert aldrich)
Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone)
Le Jour se lève / Daybreak (Marcel Carné)
Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls)
Lola (Jacques Demy)
Manhattan (Woody Allen)
Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch)
Ma nuit chez Maud / My Night at Maud’s (Eric Rohmer)
Nuit et Brouillard / Night and Fog (Alain Resnais)
The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin)
Scarface (Howard Hawks)
Ladri di biciclette / Bicycle Thief (Vittorio de Sica)
Napoléon (Abel Gance)
Filmmakers Number of votes
Jean Renoir 155
Alfred Hitchcock 146
Fritz Lang 143
Charles Chaplin 128
John Ford 124
Orson Welles 114
Ingmar Bergman 113
Luis Buñuel 110
F.W. Murnau 108
Howard Hawks 105
Jean-Luc Godard 99
Federico Fellini 99
Ernst Lubitsch 98
Luchino Visconti 90
Robert Bresson 90
Kenji Mizoguchi 87
Akira Kurosawa 86
Max Ophuls 83
Alain Resnais 82
Carl Theodor Dreyer 76
François Truffaut 75
Stanley Kubrick 75
Vincente Minnelli 73
Joseph L. Mankiewicz 73
Roberto Rosselini 73
Josef von Sternberg 69
Michelangelo Antonioni 67
Sergei Eisenstein 65
Marcel Carné 64
Billy Wilder 61
Buster Keaton 61
Yasujiro Ozu 60
Erich von Stroheim 60
John Huston 59
Elia Kazan 55
King Vidor 53
D.W. Griffith 53
Maurice Pialat 52
Jean Vigo 51
Nicholas Ray 49
Jacques Becker 48
Woody Allen 48
Francis Ford Coppola 47
Jacques Demy 47
Charles Laughton 47
Jacques Tati 46
Otto Preminger 45
Leo McCarey 45
George Cukor 44
Raoul Walsh 44
78 Critics and Historians
Henri Agel
Vincent Amiel
François Amy de la Breteque
Jean-Jacques Bernard
Pierre Billard
Frédéric Bonnaud
Ferid Boughedir
Michel Boujut
Jean-Loup Bourget
Pierre-André Boutang
Frédéric Boyer
Patrick Brion
Freddy Ruache
Philippe Carcassonne
Jean-Claude Carriere
Michel Cazenave
Henry Chapier
Bernard Chardere
Michel Chion
Raymond Chirat
Michel Ciment
Bernard Cohn
Jean Collet
Philippe Collin
Pierre-Henri Deleau
Jean-Luc Douin
Michel Esteve
Jacques Fieschi
Jean-Michel Frodon
Anne de Gasperi
Charlotte Garson
Jean Gili
Claude de Givray
Régine Hatchondo
Noël Herpe
Aude hesbert
Gilles Jacob
Thierry Jousse
Serge Kaganski
Petr Kral
Jean-Marc Lalanne
Xavier Lardoux
Natacha Laurent (Cinematheque de Toulouse. With Christophe Gauthier and Jean-Paul Gorce)
Philippe Le Guay
Gérard Leone
Jean-Yves de Lepinay
Eric Le Roy
Jean-Louis Leutrat
Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues
Lucien Logette
Jean-Claude Loiseau
Jacques Lourcelles
Pascal Merigeau
Claude Miller
Alain Masson
Jean Narboni
Dominique Païni
Olivier Père
Claude-Jean Philippe
Vincent Pinel
René Prédal
Dominique Rabourdin
Jean-Claude Raspiengeas
Alain Riou
Pierre Rissient
Jean-Claude Romer
Philippe Rouyer
Nicolas Saada
Jacques Siclier
Noël Simsolo
Catherine Soullard
Pierre Tchernia
Charles Tesson
Jérôme Tonnerre
Christian Viviani
Edouard Waintrop
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6 Responses to “100 Films for the Ideal Cinematheque”
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Fascinating read (it’s great to have the images, the sounds and even the feelings you’ve experienced watching those movies race back to you in a vertigo-mad kaleidoscope while reading the list).
Andre, why don’t you ask your peers and readers to come up with an 100 Films for the ALTFG?
That’s a good idea, Joao. Soon… What would be *your* choices?
I’d take a while to put it together — and it would be a bit too long to leave on a reply, I guess… Just browsing my Movie Collector with grades of 5, I would have “Red / Rouge”, many of the Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s (”Suddenly, Last Summer”, “Julius Caesar”, “All About Eve”, “A Letter to Three Wives”), “Dangerous Liaisons”, “Ball of Fire”, François Ozon’s short “Victor”, D.W. Griffith’s “Broken Blossoms”, “The Sealed Room” and “A Corner in Wheat”, Visconti’s “Senso”, “Pillow Talk”, “Meet John Doe”, “Mildred Pierce”, Douglas Sirk’s…
Joao,
Which Douglas Sirks????
lol — well, “All That Heaven Allows”, “All I Desire”, “Written on the Wind”, “Imitation of Life” (although I may actually favour the 1934 version over Sirk’s)… What would be your Top 100?
It’s not a bad list, but those guys should watch more movies. Two Viscontis are better than none, but only two? No Francesco Rosi, no Pietro Germi, no Mauro Monicelli. Not good!