I’ll put my essay on essential films here when I move everything. Meanwhile, there are rules: no more than two a year and no more than two per filmmaker. The judgement is made independently of the folding characteristics and simply has to do with craft, effectiveness, and/or significance.
(I may add pages for my special studies outside of the folding dynamics: filmmakers and actors as lovers; redheads as iconic of something notable; Holmes, Alice, and Shakespeare; architectural form.)
| YEAR | TITLE | S-S Flmkr | S-S Critic | IMDB Top |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Moana | |||
| 2016 | Kubo and the Two Strings | |||
| 2011 | The Tree of Life | =196 | ||
| 2010 | Inception | 14 | ||
| 2010 | Room in Rome | |||
| 2009 | Broken Embraces | |||
| 2009 | The Limits of Control | |||
| 2009 | Enter the Void | |||
| 2008 | Synecdoche, New York | |||
| 2008 | Tropic Thunder | |||
| 2007 | Across the Universe | |||
| 2007 | I’m Not There | |||
| 2006 | Blood Tea and Red String | |||
| 2006 | Inland Empire | |||
| 2005 | Hidden | |||
| 2005 | The Pianotuner of Earthquakes | |||
| 2004 | 2046 | |||
| 2004 | Tanner on Tanner | |||
| 2003 | 21 Grams | |||
| 2003 | The Saddest Music in the World | |||
| 2002 | Heaven | |||
| 2002 | Talk to Her | |||
| 2001 | Moulin Rouge! | |||
| 2001 | Sex and Lucia | |||
| 2000 | In the Mood for Love | =9 | 5 | |
| 2000 | Memento | 54 | ||
| 1999 | Marcel Proust’s Time Regained | |||
| 1999 | Sweet and Lowdown | |||
| 1998 | Snake Eyes | |||
| 1998 | The Thin Red Line | |||
| 1997 | Oscar and Lucinda | |||
| 1996 | Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream that One Calls Human Life | |||
| 1996 | The Pillow Book | |||
| 1994 | Three Colors: Red | |||
| 1994 | Vanya on 42nd Street | |||
| 1993 | Short Cuts | |||
| 1993 | Three Colors: Blue | |||
| 1992 | Oedipus Rex | |||
| 1991 | Prospero’s Books | |||
| 1990 | Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead | |||
| 1987 | King Lear | |||
| 1986 | The Singing Detective | |||
| 1985 | Ran | =195 | 135 | |
| 1983 | Nostalghia | |||
| 1983 | Three Crowns of the Sailor | |||
| 1982 | Blade Runner | =62 | =54 | 177 |
| 1982 | ||||
| 1981 | The French Lieutenant’s Woman | |||
| 1980 | Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession | |||
| 1979 | My Brilliant Career | |||
| 1979 | The Muppet Movie | |||
| 1977 | Annie Hall | =243 | ||
| 1976 | Heart of Glass | |||
| 1976 | The Tenant | |||
| 1975 | Picnic at Hanging Rock | |||
| 1973 | Day for Night | |||
| 1972 | Aguirre, the Wrath of God | =118 | ||
| 1971 | A Clockwork Orange | =243 | 104 | |
| 1971 | The Last Movie | |||
| 1969 | Fellini: A Director’s Notebook | |||
| 1968 | 2001: A Space Odyssey | 1 | 6 | 90 |
| 1968 | Death by Hanging | |||
| 1967 | Japanese Summer: Double Suicide | |||
| 1966 | Andrei Rublov | =26 | =67 | |
| 1965 | The Saragossa Manuscript | |||
| 1964 | I Am Cuba | |||
| 1964 | Red Desert | =169 | ||
| 1963 | 8 1/2 | =6 | =31 | |
| 1962 | Laurence of Arabia | =62 | =133 | 95 |
| 1962 | The Pier | =35 | =67 | |
| 1961 | Last Year in Marienbad | =169 | ||
| 1959 | Hiroshima My Love | =169 | ||
| 1958 | Vertigo | =6 | 2 | |
| 1957 | 12 Angry Men | 5 | ||
| 1957 | The Seventh Seal | =72 | =136 | 204 |
| 1956 | Forbidden Planet | |||
| 1954 | Rear Window | =38 | 50 | |
| 1953 | Duck Amuck | |||
| 1953 | Tales of Ugetsu | |||
| 1952 | Singin’ in the Rain | |||
| 1952 | The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice | |||
| 1951 | A Streetcar Named Desire | |||
| 1950 | Rashômon | =20 | =41 | 151 |
| 1948 | The Red Shoes | =72 | =67 | |
| 1947 | The Lady from Shanghai | |||
| 1941 | Never Give a Sucker and Even Break | |||
| 1941 | Sullivan’s Travels | =243 | ||
| 1937 | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | |||
| 1936 | My Man Godfrey | |||
| 1935 | The Phantom Empire | |||
| 1934 | L’Atalante | |||
| 1933 | The Old Man and the Mountain | |||
| 1933 | The Testament of Dr. Mabuse | |||
| 1932 | Freaks | |||
| 1932 | The Mask of Fu Manchu | |||
| 1931 | City Lights | =52 | 36 | 52 |
| 1930 | The Bishop Murder Case | |||
| 1929 | Diary of a Lost Girl | |||
| 1927 | It | |||
| 1924 | Sherlock, Jr. | =54 | 196 | |
| 1920 | The Golem | |||
| 1910 | Frankenstein | |||
| 1902 | Jack and the Beanstalk | |||
| 1895 | Lumiere: Painted Dancer | |||
| YEAR | TITLE | S-S Flmkr | S-S Critic | IMDB Top |
I’ve made this list with only passing reference to the narrative folding study. These are films that I think for me were influential, potentially life-altering, or transcendental in some way. The list was motivated by people asking me for film recommendations beyond those that are ‘worth watching’, being what I will guide my children through as part of their discovering the world. I expect it to grow as my life improves. Nothing has been added for more than a decade during my break.
I’ve recently looked at other lists but will note only three here:
The Sight and Sound top 100 influential films as judged by a number of filmmakers, 2022. Their rankings are entered in the S-S Flmkr column. Their values will differ. I’m interested in what changed my life, where they will vote for those that changed their craft. The S-S Critic column is from a group that largely writes for a popular audience. The final column is the rankings from IMDB (as of June 2023), so from the world of viewers.
I’ve gotten a lot of comments on my choices from major filmmakers:
Those with two, listed in order of the director’s birth year:
Alfred Hitchcock’s (b 1899) two are ‘Rear Window’ and ‘Vertigo’
Akira Kurosawa’s (b 1910) two are ‘Rashômon’ and ‘Ran’
Orson Welles’ (b 1915) two are ‘The Lady from Shanghai’ and ‘Othello’
Frederico Fellini’s (b 1920) two are ‘8 ½’ and ‘Fellini: A Director’s Notebook’
Alain Resnais‘ (b 1922) two are ‘Hiroshima Mon Amore’ and ‘Last Year at Marianbad’
Robert Altman’s (b 1925) two are ‘Short Cuts’ and ‘Tanner on Tanner’
Stanley Kubrick’s (b 1928) two are ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’
Andrey Tarkovskiy‘s (b 1931) two are ‘Andrei Rublov’ and ‘Nostalghia’
Nagisa Oshima’s (b 1932) two are ‘Death by Hanging’ and ‘Double Suicide: Japanese Summer’
Woody Allen’s (b 1935) two are ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Sweet and Lowdown’
Krzysztof Kieslowski‘s (b 1941) two are ‘Three Colors: Red’ and ‘Three Colors: Blue’
Raoul Ruiz‘s (b 1941) two are ‘Three Crowns of the Sailor’ and ‘Marcel Proust’s Time Regained’
Werner Herzog’s (b 1942) two are ‘Heart of Glass’ and ‘Aguirre, the Rath of God’
Peter Greenaway’s (b 1942) two are ‘Prospero’s Books’ and ‘The Pillow Book’
Terrence Malick’s (b 1943) two are ‘The Thin Red Line’ and ‘The Tree of Life’
Pedro Almodóvar’s (b 1949) two are ‘Talk to Her’ and ‘Broken Embraces’
Gillian Armstrong’s (b 1950) two are ‘My Brilliant Career’ and ‘Oscar and Lucinda’
Julie Taymor’s (b 1952) two are ‘Oedipus Rex’ and ‘Across the Universe’
Kar Wai Wong’s (b 1956) two are In the ‘Mood for Love’ and ‘2046’
Julio Medem’s (b 1958) two are ‘Sex and Lucia’ and ‘Room in Rome’
Christopher Nolan’s (b 1970) two are ‘Memento’ and ‘Inception’
Notable others with one, expected to deliver a second:
Roman Polanski‘s (b 1933) two are ‘The Tenant’ and …
Ridley Scott‘s (b 1937) two are ‘Blade Runner’ and …
Brian De Palma’s (b 1940) two are ‘Snake Eyes’ and …
David Lynch’s (b 1948) two are ‘Inland Empire’ and …
Guy Maddin’s (b 1956) two are ‘The Saddest Music in the World’ and …
Charlie Kaufman‘s (b 1958) two are ‘Synecdoche, New York’ and …
Baz Luhrmann’s (b 1962) two are ‘Moulin Rouge!’ and …
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (b 1963) two are ’21 Grams’ and …
With no surprise, many of the actors we admire feature in some of these:
Cate Blanchett (‘Heaven’, ‘Oscar and Lucinda’, ‘I’m Not There’)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (‘Synecdoche, New York’)
Julianne Moore (‘Vanya on 42nd Street’, ‘Short Cuts’)
Sean Penn (‘The Tree of Life’, ’21 Grams’, ‘Sweet and Lowdown’, ‘The Thin Red Line’)
Interesting Cinematographers:
Christopher Doyle (‘In the Mood for Love’, ‘2046’, ‘The Limits of Control’)
Sacha Vierny (‘Hiroshima mon amour’, ‘L’année dernière à Marienbad’, ‘Prospero’s Books’, ‘The Pillow Book’)