THE BEST FILMS OF ALL TIME: #1-5

The complete list
Introduction
#1-5 #6-15 #16-25 #26-35 #36-45 #46-55
#56-65 #66-75 #76-85 #86-95 #96-105 #106-115

5. Seven Samurai
AKA 七人の侍 (Shichinin no samurai)
(Kurosawa Akira, 1954, Japan)

It is is sometimes complained of Kurosawa, and sometimes observed simply in passing, that Kurosawa, though a Japanese director, made American-flavored films for a Western audience, and that this is why he remains the most internationally prominent of his country's filmmakers. Not being nearly as well-acquainted with the second-tier and below of Japanese cinema as I ought to be, I can't really speak to that opinion, though this much is certainly true: Seven Samurai is a quintessentially American kind of movie, the first of the director's intermittent run of Westerns dressed up as jidaigeki, and the best. So many of the techniques that make Kurosawa arguably the most consistently great filmmaker in history are at their very best here: his ability to draw out performances that are archetypal and stagey even as they are tremendously convincing on a human level; his manipulation of frame and depth of field with such easy excellence that even a still can be jam-packed with narrative detail; and his unparalleled command of pacing, leaving a 207-minute film feeling as fleet and thrilling as an adventure movie half as long. It's a consummate piece of craftsmanship and entertainment, with a heart of simple though honest humanism.

4. Vertigo
(Alfred Hitchcock, 1958, USA)

Near the end of a decade where he established himself as one of the great populists of American filmmaking, the Master of Suspense turned the tables on everybody with this absurdly dark, rancid act of psychoanalysis, a film as troubling in its moral implications as it is brilliant in every detail of its construction. Placing affable EveryAmerican James Stewart as far against type as any actor of such iconic mien has ever been, in the role of a sexually psychotic detective, the film constantly challenges our identification with the material, cruelly teasing us by allowing and then depriving us Stewart as the main POV character, and giving away the ending just at the exact moment things start getting really intense. Add to that the film's inventive use of color to further both story and character, still revolutionary a half-century and more later; and a structure that would already be baffling without swapping protagonists two-thirds of the way through - there are two distinct movies here, one serving as the other's first act - and you have devilishly challenging ultra-modern psychological thriller that still hasn't been topped. It's among the most sophisticated movies ever attempted, an unsettling work of pitch-black genius. (Reviewed here)

3. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
(F.W. Murnau, 1927, USA)

The early history of cinema was the medium's Wild West phase: when there were no rules, only possibilities, and a clever filmmaker could invent new forms of representation every day of the week. This slowed down, but persisted all the way to the tail end of the silent era, as the best and brightest sought for new ways to express story, character, theme, and emotion through increasingly pure visual means; and then along came the talkies, forcing the medium back to its cradle, where it remained for many long years. Those late silent masterpieces are still among the most refined examples of cinema's possibilities as a visual medium, and none is more elegant and dare I say perfect than the German genius Murnau's first movie in America, a slight melodramatic fable of marital fidelity and the appealing depravity of city living that is told through some of the most powerful images ever conceived; cinematographers Charles Rosher and Karl Struss capturing Rochus Gliese's sets with lyrical, painterly excellence, and editor Harold D. Schuster combining those images in some of the most elegant cuts ever seen in Hollywood. It all adds up to an elemental depiction of human feeling of impossible beauty. (Reviewed here)

2. Tokyo Story
AKA 東京物語 (Tōkyō monogatari)
(Ozu Yasujirō, 1953, Japan)

Camera at the level of a tatami mat: check. Shots framing rooms like dioramas: check. Aggressive editing that moves from character to character according to the emotional needs of the moment, abandoning continuity altogether: check. Ryū Chishū and Hara Setsuko, magnificent in key roles: check. On paper, there's not much that separates this film from most of the others in the last part of Ozu's career: save that while all of them are great dissections of family behavior, this one is something special: particularly cutting, particularly insightful. Depicting the relationship between parents and adult children with great sensitivity and balance - we feel horrible about how the elderly Hirayamas are treated by their kids, and at the same time we understand why the kids feel they way they do - Tokyo Story says as much about the human condition as any other film I can think of, depicting love and tenderness and sympathy right alongside frustration and resentment and guilt, judging none of these but allowing that they are all part of being an imperfect person. I can name no other motion picture that takes such an unblinking look at all of our greatest faults with such generosity and forgiveness. (Reviewed here)

1. The Passion of Joan of Arc
AKA La passion de Jeanne d'Arc
(Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928, France)

It can be argued that the highest goal of narrative, character-driven cinema is to make us understand the mind and feelings of another human being; whether this is exactly the case, it must surely be true that no film has succeeded so entirely at that goal as Dreyer's scrupulously historical account of a woman whose entire life was an expression of her religious ardor, facing her enemies and her death with equanimity and spiritual strength. Almost exclusively using close-ups of actors wearing no makeup, the film could not possibly be more intimate: Joan fills our vision and our consciousness, the slightest detail of her face striking us in the gut more than all the immaculate detail of the largely-invisible but stupendously costly set. With most of the film relying completely on Joan's face for meaning, it's lucky for Dreyer that Renée Falconetti gave the most sublime performance ever filmed, a masterpiece of tiny expressions and emotions that radiate from the actress's very flesh, and haunting eyes looking thousands of miles beyond human knowledge. No film so fully engages with its protagonist, marshaling all of the tools of cinema in service of a profound act of empathy between viewer and character.