Saleem Albeik
Critic
Palestine/France
Voted for
| Film | Year | Director |
|---|---|---|
| Persona | 1966 | Ingmar Bergman |
| L'avventura | 1960 | Michelangelo Antonioni |
| Tokyo Story | 1953 | Yasujirō Ozu |
| Man with a Movie Camera | 1929 | Dziga Vertov |
| Bicycle Thieves | 1948 | Vittorio De Sica |
| 8½ | 1963 | Federico Fellini |
| Citizen Kane | 1941 | Orson Welles |
| Battleship Potemkin | 1925 | Sergei M. Eisenstein |
| Le Mépris | 1963 | Jean-Luc Godard |
| INTERVENTION DIVINE | 2002 | Elia Suleiman |
Comments
Persona
A perfect homage to narration, a cinematic revolution by itself.
L'avventura
A mesmerising love message to image and frame.
Tokyo Story
A psychologically healing film, a magically calming one.
Man with a Movie Camera
A pioneering film, an introduction to documentation in practice and theory.
Bicycle Thieves
A pure hunatist approach to cinema.
8½
Film history timeline is what comes before and after 8½.
Citizen Kane
A cinema necessary bible.
Battleship Potemkin
If a film is partially montage, cinema history is partially this film.
Le Mépris
A great film by the greatest director.
INTERVENTION DIVINE
A unique contemporary and a conquering film of a one of a kind director.
Further remarks
Like many other cinephiles, I believe, once I discovered this poll, long years ago, I made myself a task of watching and studying these 100 great films. My voyage to film criticism was through this poll; a hundred films in almost a hundred days. This poll constructed my understanding of what a great film would look like. Today, I feel overwhelmed to be part of it, years after that voyage.
I had a few other films that needed to be in my personal greatest films. Kurosawa, Bresson, Tarkovsky, Lynch, Kubrick,Truffaut, Coppola, Keaton, Chaplin and others will start haunting me for not being able to let them in. This will be my concern once I send you my greatest ones.