Andrei Liimets

Comments

The General

The high-water mark for action movies for close to a hundred years. Keaton's innovation and fearlessness were second to none, and his screen persona still electrifies even today. See also: One Week, Sherlock Jr., Mad Max: Fury Road

Man with a Movie Camera

An experiment in sculpting time, place, feeling and meaning, while also a joyride through the possibilities of early film which might never be surpassed in terms of its limitless playfulness. See also: The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence, Bowling for Columbine

City Lights

While three or four films could be argued to be Chaplin's masterpiece, this might be the most touching, ending up with probably the single best bit of acting ever recorded on screen. See also: The Kid, The Gold Rush, Modern Times, It Happened One Night

Bicycle Thieves

The high point of postwar neorealism, which has set the gold standard for all human stories about inequality that have come after. See also: The Grapes of Wrath, The Battle of Algiers, Parasite

Rear Window

While some other Hitchcock films might have even more critical accolades, this remains the master's greatest study of perspective, subjectivity and restraint. See also: Rebecca, Psycho, Vertigo, M, 12 Angry Men

Seven Samurai

The eastern to top all westerns. Kurosawa's absolute highlight and a film to be studied in terms of blending the exterior and the interior, the grand and the small, the there-and-then and the timeless. See also: Once upon a Time in the West, There Will Be Blood

Lawrence of Arabia

A majestic and breathtaking spectacle which entertains as well as educates while pushing forward the technical possibilities of film to reflect history and become history. Also see: Paths of Glory, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Casablanca, Schindler's List

Princess Mononoke

While Spirited Away might remain his most popular work, this altogether more elegiac tale is Miyazaki's defining warning to respect the natural world around us. See also: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Spirited Away, Up

The Matrix

A science-fiction action acid trip ahead of its time and our time. Still innovative and stylish beyond belief. See also: 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Stalker, La Jetée

The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring

Difficult to pick one third of the trilogy, as the first and the final chapters both still feel like a sort of culmination of the possibilities of film, fantasy and absolute escapism which enlivens and enlightens. See also: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Further remarks

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