Top 200: 101- 200

“Without turning, the pharmacist answered that he liked books like The Metamorphosis, Bartleby, A Simple Heart, A Christmas Carol. And then he said that he was reading Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. Leaving aside the fact that A Simple Heart and A Christmas Carol were stories, not books, there was something revelatory about the taste of this bookish young pharmacist, who ... clearly and inarguably preferred minor works to major ones. He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial, he chose Bartleby over Moby Dick, he chose A Simple Heart over Bouvard and Pecouchet, and A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers. What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze a path into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench.”

1.  

I rarely get to share the films that excite me with people other than my girlfriend. If it's not her, it's people who I've become friends with online. When I'm talking to people who share an interest of mine, I feel like I am doing so with my back held up against a door- hundreds of books, movies and music recommendations waiting to burst out and overtake the conversation. Sometimes I just open the door a crack so I can tailor the movie I recommend to what their interest is. I'm not going to go up to a stranger and recommend WaterPower to them. But if by chance, they are into that sorta thing, then more power to them. After all, the biggest gift a film love can impart onto another is a movie they love.

The above Roberto Bolano quote is a love letter to 'messy art'. Magnolia always struck me as the example of this type of movie. It doesn't quite share the same critical space as say, There Will Be Blood. This is in no way diminishing the quality of Blood. To leave it at that would be lazy and contrarian. You can get your special prize for being oh so unique and return to your seat. It does ultimately come down to personal preference. I feel the same way about Citizen Kane and F For Fake. I just get more enjoyment out of the latter. Welles is on fire with ideas about trickery, art forgery and the idea of authorship. There's been two constants in my top ten since it started way back when: Magnolia and Apocalypse Now. Two films where you watch 'the great masters spar.' Real fucking combat. 

2. Jeanne Dielman to Jackass

German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin once said: "Higher art sought concentration while lower art fostered distraction. All of this in order to distort and corrupt the original and justified interest of the masses of film- an interest in them understanding themselves and therefore their class." The Music Box Theater in Chicago recently had a series called Highs and Lows. In the series, they coupled what one would consider high art and low art. They paired Dumb and Dumber with Y Tu Mama Tambien, How High with Daisies, Billy Madison with The Phantom of Liberty, Peggy Sue Got Married with The Last Temptation of Christ. All of this in hope to warp and distort the line separating high and low art. 

What is so frustrating is finding people who put limitations on their media consumption. Black and white, foreign language and silent films are just too artsy for the horror kid and exploitation, hardcore and SOV movies are too low brow for the arthouse kid. I say try it all. It shouldn't matter if it was made in 2021 or 1921. When I meet someone whose taste is set in stone or has hit a comfortable ceiling of exploration, I don't walk the other way, I run. What I look for in a fan of movies is one who can enjoy a Russ Meyer film on Saturday and an Ingmar Bergman film on Sunday. The kinds of moviegoers who are willing to stand on the cinematic highway and thumb down whatever vehicle comes by, who are willing to takes chances. Wittgenstein said it best: "The limits of your language are the limits of your world." Exploring new avenues of cinema shouldn't have to feel like homework. Once it does, might as well throw in the towel. 

I've never been to film school, but I imagine it being mind numbingly dull sitting next to a guy who pontificates about mise en scene. Or going through a syllabus filled with strictly arthouse fare. As if there is nothing of value to be found in say, Jackass: The Movie. A horror convention is a place I find myself more at home. The merchandise helps out. 

There are various sub groups out there. The A24 fans who seem to only like movies from 2010 onward. From my experience, it's niche genre fans- I'm thinking the ones who are into hardcore adult films- that are the most open. And ya know what? It kinda makes sense. They are already a fan of the most looked down upon subgenre of film there is, so you have no choice but to expand outward. This isn't just a trend I see in film. I've seen it pop up frequently with fans of heavy metal. 

3. "Today it looks like Disneyland" 

I remember just last year crafting a list of my top 20 films from 1971 to celebrate it's 50th anniversary. The list expanded to top 30 and even then, I felt I was missing some gold. The film that ended up at number 30 felt just as essential as the film that topped the list. Nowadays, I struggle to make a top 10 with that feeling. The moment I feel I'm filling up slots just to make it reach ten is the moment I reassess and question whether I should make a list at all. Hence, the last couple years being more of a best of media. 

Truth is, I'm exhausted. The constant barrage of Marvel, Star Wars, and all the other ways studios are capitalizing on nostalgia is enough to make me tune out of it all. Nobody dies and everything is a shared universe. Get turned into CGI confetti in one movie and come back in the next one. Take us away, climate change. 

There are thousands of titles out there at the tips of our grubby little hands. Streaming sites such as Shudder and The Criterion Channel cater to our little curated corners of cinephilia. There are no more excuses for there not being anything to watch. Thanks to Criterion, Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, Blue Underground, and many others, I have a growing library of titles I can retreat to and watch in the comfort of my home. As such, this list grows larger in archive titles than it does in new releases. Not for lack of me trying. I try to watch a good amount of new releases in the theater. Maybe 2 or 3 a month and then 4 to 5 around November thru December. Out of those releases, very few have left me stunned. If we're talking the last few years, only one movie has eeked out amidst the hundreds of movies to come out, Titane. 

4. THE LIST

I couldn't limit my list to 100. So I extended it to 200. The criteria for these are: would I want to rewatch this or is this a one and done movie I admire more than actively love?  Am I adding this for personal reasons or to impress someone else? Yes to the former? OK. Yes to the latter? You're out. 

Editing the list has taken close to a year in blog form. It's a constantly mutating, ever changing beast and you gotta be fuckin' kidding me if you think it's going to look like this a year from now. 

I have heard the phrase "what your favorite film is says a lot about you as a person" tossed around a lot. A list of favorite films should be able to give a good representation too. 

To give you a glimpse of how agonizing the process of creating/limiting this list was, here is a section titled

HONORABLE MENTION

or: what snuck into the list, then was dropped the next day...

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Detour (1945), Notorious (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), In A Lonely Place (1950), Strangers On A Train (1951), Ugetsu (1953), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Paths of Glory (1957), Eyes Without A Face (1959), Some Like It Hot (1959), Last Year At Marienbad (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962), Funeral Parade of Roses (1962), Harakiri (1962), Shock Corridor (1963), Onibaba (1964), The Train (1964), Kwaidan (1965), Repulsion (1965), Kill, Baby...Kill! (1966), Le Samourai (1967), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), The Conformist (1970), The French Connection (1971), Investigations of A Citizen Above Suspicion (1971), Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (1972), Play It Again Sam (1972), Coffy (1973), The Long Goodbye (1973), Messiah of Evil (1973), Black Christmas (1974), Truck Turner (1974), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Grey Gardens (1976), Kings of the Road (1976), Network (1976),  News From Home (1977), Stroszek (1977), Airplane! (1980), Cannibal Holocaust (1980), Cruising (1980), Modern Romance (1981), Ms. 45 (1981), Southern Comfort (1981), Pieces (1982), Poltergeist (1982), The Boxer's Omen (1983), Blonde Death (1984), The NeverEnding Story (1984), Cobra (1986), The Money Pit (1986), Broadcast News (1987), Born On the Fourth of July (1989), The Killer (1989), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Baraka (1992), Batman Returns (1992), Last of the Mohicans (1992), Malcolm X (1992), Addams Family Values (1993), Dazed and Confused (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), Last Action Hero (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Dead Man (1995), Fallen Angels (1995), Velvet Goldmine (1998), Audition (1999), The Iron Giant (1999), Wonder Boys (2000), Yi Yi (2000), Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001), Adaptation. (2002), Punch- Drunk Love (2002), OldBoy (2003), Before Sunset (2004), Napoleon Dynamite (2004), The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), Take Shelter (2011), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), The Act of Killing (2012), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), The Duke of Burgundy (2014), Enemy (2014), Interstellar (2014), Magic Mike XXL (2015), Bad Black (2016), Manchester By the Sea (2016), First Reformed (2018), The House That Jack Built (2018), You Were Never Really Here (2018), 

Parasite (2019)