Personal faves

Okay, this wasn’t as easy as I thought. The two-films-per-director maximum was a bugger and I’m still not quite sure whether I can justify kicking out ‘The Last Picture Show’ or ‘Chinatown’ so that I could include lesser known gems like ‘Malcolm’ or ‘Charley Varrick’.

Still, this isn’t the list of the 100 greatest films ever made, or even my definitive 100 absolute favourite movies. It’s a list of a 100 films out of those I consider my favourites, cobbled together with the intention of providing a bit of variety. Which is a good thing, since I’ve effectively set myself the task of writing about them, roughly one a week, for the next two years.

So without further ado – and with links where reviews already exist on these pages – here’s the list:

Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1973)

Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1969)

Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987)

Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

Badlands (Terence Malick, 1973)

Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)

Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks, 1974)

Das Boot (Wolfgang Peterson, 1981)

Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002)

Bullet in the Head (John Woo, 1990)

Carlito's Way (Brian de Palma, 1993)

Charley Varrick (Don Siegel, 1973)

City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)

The Constant Gardener (Fernando Mereilles, 2005)

The Corporation (Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbott, 2003)

The Dam Busters (Michael Anderson, 1955)

Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989)

Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971)

Deep Red (Dario Argento, 1975)

Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971)

Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966)

Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)

Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)

Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994)

Emperor of the North (Robert Aldrich, 1973)

The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)

The Eye (Danny & Oxide Pang, 2002)

Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)

Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)

Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932)

The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)

From Dusk Till Dawn (Robert Rodriguez, 1996)

From Russia with Love (Terence Young, 1963)

Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)

Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992)

The Godfather Parts I & II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972/1974)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)

Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)

Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994)

Hollywood Shuffle (Robert Townsend, 1987)

I Know Where I'm Going! (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1945)

An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)

The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004)

The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)

The Killer (John Woo, 1989)

L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997)

Leningrad Cowboys Go America (Aki Kaurismaki, 1989)

Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Werner Herzog, 1997)

Lone Star (John Sayles, 1996)

Malcolm (Nadia Tass, 1986)

Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)

The Man Who Wasn't There (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2001)

Matador (Pedro Almodovar, 1986)

Matewan (John Sayles, 1987)

A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946)

Miller's Crossing (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1990)

Monty Python's Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979)

North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)

Ocean's 11 (Steven Soderbergh, 2001)

Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2007)

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah, 1973)

The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006)

Providence (Alain Resnais, 1977)

Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)

Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)

The Ring (Hideo Nakata, 1998)

Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960)

Seven Days to Noon (John & Roy Boulting, 1950)

Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)

Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)

The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)

Short Cuts (Robert Altman, 1993)

Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)

Some Like it Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)

Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

The Straight Story (David Lynch, 1999)

Taking Liberties (Chris Atkins, 2007)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent, 1974)

A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Jee-Woon, 2004)

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Bunuel, 1977)

There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)

The Train (John Frankenheimer, 1964)

Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)

The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953)

Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Steve Box & Nick Park, 2005)

Went the Day Well? (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1942)

Where Eagles Dare (Brian G Hutton, 1968)

Whisky Galore! (Alexander Mackendrick, 1949)

White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949)

The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)

The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)

Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders,1987)

Withnail & I (Bruce Robinson, 1987)