Friends of mine often ask for movie recommendations. I typically respond with recent films that received uncontroversial acclaim but undeservedly slipped under the cultural radar. Some examples might include The Father (2020), Nightmare Alley (2021), and even Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2022).
Recommendations like these carry low risk, since they have low likelihood of jarring viewers, offending them, or confusing them (inordinately). Plus, they’re really good films.
But many are interested in recommendations of a higher order. Viewers already versed in older and more arty films may be searching for something more profound than the diatribes of a talking shell. They may be wondering: what, ultimately, are the best of the best?
That’s an incredibly loaded question, but also an important one. To answer it in a way that might be useful, I’ve used a combination of objective and subjective criteria. Essentially, I’ve chosen movies that often appear on respected lists of “best” films—but I’ve chosen my personal favorites among those. In other words, I’ve deferred to the larger critical community to curate my options, and I’ve selected from the consensus list they’ve provided. This, hopefully, has kept the list “personal” while also avoiding excessive idiosyncrasy.
I’ve also used two rules to further narrow the list:
- Silent films are excluded. This removes from contention many of the films that experts tend to deem the greatest of all time. But I didn’t feel it was fair (or possible) to adequately compare silent films with sound ones. This is in part because I don’t yet feel that I personally appreciate the aesthetics of silent films enough to authentically place them on a list like this.
- Only one film per director is allowed. This, again, guards against idiosyncrasy. For example, I’m an admirer of Stanley Kubrick, but this rule stops me from packing the list with his films.
The second rule also encourages a more diverse, representative list. And that’s important to me, because I want this list to function as a canon. In other words, if you’ve seen these twenty films, you’ve seen a fair representation of the best that cinema has to offer. Without further ado, here they are, in chronological order:
- M (1931) – Fritz Lang, Germany
- The Rules of the Game (1939) – Jean Renoir, France
- Citizen Kane (1941) – Orson Welles, USA
- Breathless (1950) – Jean-Luc Godard, France
- Rashomon (1950) – Akira Kurosawa, Japan
- Tokyo Story (1953) – Yasujiro Ozu, Japan
- Vertigo (1958) – Alfred Hitchcock, USA
- The Adventure (1960) – Michaelangelo Antonioni, Italy
- La Dolce Vita (1960) – Frederico Fellini, Italy
- Persona (1966) – Ingmar Bergman, Sweden
- Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) – Robert Bresson, France
- Playtime (1967) – Jacques Tati, France
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – Stanley Kubrick, USA
- Mirror (1975) – Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR
- Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) – Chantal Akerman, Belgium
- Taxi Driver (1976) – Martin Scorsese, USA
- Blade Runner (1982) – Ridley Scott, USA
- Spirited Away (2001) – Hayao Miyazaki, Japan
- Mulholland Dr. (2001) – David Lynch, USA
- The Tree of Life (2011) – Terrance Malick, USA
Notes
–I freely admit that I haven’t seen every film that many experts would rank among the best, so I’ll have to continuously update and expand this list as I become familiar with more films.
–Rule #2 created some very difficult choices. For the Kurosawa entry, I chose Rashomon over the great Seven Samurai (1954). The Hitchcock entry could have been Rear Window (1954) or Psycho (1960), but following my lengthy analysis of Vertigo, I chose it instead. Finally, I didn’t like leaving Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979) off the list, but I couldn’t pass on Mirror.
–The list is skewed toward the 1950s and 60s. So be it. The films during that period were generally more aspirational, art-conscious, and socially conscious than those of the decades that followed. I only chose one film from the 80s or 90s. However, it should be said that some of the masterpieces from those decades were boxed out because their directors made even greater works in other decades (The Shining (1980) and Blue Velvet (1986) being two examples). In addition, it’s quite possible that some of the greatest works from that period have yet to be re-highlighted by critics after a quiet initial response.
–My most controversial choice is The Tree of Life. It’s fashionable these days to roll one’s eyes at Malick’s masterpiece, in part because his subsequent outputs were inconsistent and ungrounded. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m confident that the tide will eventually turn back toward The Tree of Life.
-Jim Andersen
For more commentary, see my ranking of this year’s Best Picture nominees.