Tanya Horeck
Professor of Film and Feminist Media Studies
UK
Voted for
| Film | Year | Director |
|---|---|---|
| Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles | 1975 | Chantal Akerman |
| Fear Eats the Soul | 1974 | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| Grey Gardens | 1975 | David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer |
| Working Girls | 1986 | Lizzie Borden |
| Do the Right Thing | 1989 | Spike Lee |
| Ratcatcher | 1999 | Lynne Ramsay |
| Wasp | 2003 | Andrea Arnold |
| Hidden | 2004 | Michael Haneke |
| Stories We Tell | 2012 | Sarah Polley |
| The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open | 2019 | Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers |
Comments
Writing this list caused me great stress and pleasure in equal measure. In the run up to list submission, social media was abuzz with film academics debating the merits of ‘The List’ as a tool for determining cinematic value. ‘Lists are for laundry, not for film,’ as Elena Gorfinkel quips in her influential 2019 piece, “Against Lists.” Yes, there are inherent problems with canon-making and ‘greatest ever’ lists. List-making of this kind is also angst inducing (how to choose between films, what to leave out etc.). However, what is also true is that I love perusing the lists of other academics, filmmakers, and critics. Let’s be honest: there is pleasure to be had in both list-making and list reading. Being involved in this process reconnected me to cinema and renewed my affective and intellectual attachment to certain films and filmmakers. By no means definitive, I see my list as a snapshot of my mood in summer 2022.