Michael Atkinson
Critic, The Village Voice
USA
Voted for
| Film | Year | Director |
|---|---|---|
| Citizen Kane | 1941 | Orson Welles |
| La Règle du jeu | 1939 | Jean Renoir |
| The Conformist | 1970 | Bernardo Bertolucci |
| Sherlock Jr. | 1924 | Buster Keaton |
| Vertigo | 1958 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Aguirre, Wrath of God | 1972 | Werner Herzog |
| Céline and Julie Go Boating | 1974 | Jacques Rivette |
| L'avventura | 1960 | Michelangelo Antonioni |
| Blue Velvet | 1986 | David Lynch |
| TOPIO STIN OMICHLI | 1988 | Theo Angelopoulos |
Comments
Citizen Kane
Sorry.
La Règle du jeu
Hands down the greatest film featuring a gorilla suit.
The Conformist
Adieu, Jean-Louis.
Sherlock Jr.
A world of understanding about the dreamy dogfight between cinema and consciousness, packed into 45 minutes. My favorite broken-vertebrae movie.
Vertigo
Hardly number one, but still a movie with perverse poisoned quills all over it. A masterpiece of toxic masculinity.
Aguirre, Wrath of God
Daredevil time-travel bedevilment. Herzog's bid for sainthood.
Céline and Julie Go Boating
Rivette's sisterhood version of Road to Morocco, and just the right length.
L'avventura
The first film that redefined narrative as a plastic passage of time-space that never truly ends.
Blue Velvet
The perfect, perfectly shaken-not-stirred Lynchtini. Simultaneously a Freudian Mother of All Bombs, a satire on the Hardy Boys, a psychosexual audience crucifixion, an elegy for lost innocence, and a genuine mystery. It’s everything.
TOPIO STIN OMICHLI
An epiphany of loneliness, and Angelopoulos' sweet-spot world-beater. Hold your breath.
Further remarks
My list's order -- not necessarily the films themselves -- might change tomorrow. Ah well; look all that I left out, including filmmakers -- Godard, Bunuel, Ozu, etc. -- whose films shine best as part of their aggregate oeuvres. In fact, that's probably a more fecund, and more rewarding Top Ten poll strategy: life's work in toto. Half of the films I listed would be on that list. Other art forms do it that way; nobody votes for Best Painting or Best Poem. Why not a Nobel Prize for Cinema?