A few days ago Jandy posted about the BFI Sight and Sound critics poll that compiled the top ten lists of 800 critics worldwide in order to come up with some sort of definitive top ten list of the greatest films ever. As Rick pointed out in the comments, they also did a poll of directors, compiling the lists of 358 directors. You can check that list out here.
More interesting to me though is the lists of the individual directors. So far, only a handful of the individual lists have been published, with more to be released on August 22nd according to Indiewire.
Take the jump to see the top ten greatest movies as defined by Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino. They’re very interesting – and, in some cases, surprising. Who included Avatar and The Bad News Bears on their lists? Read on to find out.
Woody Allen
“Bicycle Thieves” (1948, dir. Vittorio De Sica)
“The Seventh Seal” (1957, dir. Ingmar Bergman)
“Citizen Kane” (1941, dir. Orson Welles
“Amarcord” (1973, dir. Federico Fellini
“8 1/2″ (1963, dir. Federico Fellini)
“The 400 Blows” (1959, dir. Francois Truffaut)
“Rashomon” (1950, dir. Akira Kurosawa)
“La Grande Illusion” (1937, dir. Jean Renoir)
“The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie” (1972, dir. Luis Bunuel)
“Paths Of Glory” (1957, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
Francis Ford Coppola
“Ashes And Diamonds” (1958, dir. Andrzej Wajda)
“The Best Years Of Our Lives” (1946, dir William Wyler)
“I Vitteloni” (1953, dir. Federico Fellini)
“The Bad Sleep Well (1960, dir. Akira Kurosawa)
“Yojimbo” (1961, dir. Akira Kurosawa)
“Singin’ In The Rain (1952, dir. Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly)
“The King Of Comedy” (1983, dir Martin Scorsese)
“Raging Bull” (1980, dir. Martin Scorsese)
“The Apartment” (1960s, dir. Billy Wilder)
“Sunrise” (1927, dir. F.W. Murnau)
Michael Mann
“Apocalypse Now” (1979, dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
“Battleship Potemkin” (1925, dir. Sergei Eisenstein)
“Citizen Kane” (1941, dir. Orson Welles)
“Avatar” (2009, dir. James Cameron)
“Dr. Strangelove” (1964, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
“Biutiful” (2010, dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
“My Darling Clementine” (1946, dir. John Ford)
“The Passion Of Joan Of Arc” (1928, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer)
“Raging Bull” (1980, dir. Martin Scorsese)
“The Wild Bunch” (1969, dir. Sam Peckinpah)
Martin Scorsese
“8 1/2″ (1963, dir. Federico Fellini)
“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
“Ashes And Diamonds” (1958, dir. Andrzej Wajda)
“Citizen Kane” (1941, dir. Orson Welles)
“The Leopard” (1963, dir. Luchino Visconti)
“Paisan” (1946, dir. Roberto Rossellini)
“The Red Shoes” (1948, dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
“The River” (1951, dir. Jean Renoir)
“Salvatore Giuliano” (1962, dir. Francesco Rosi)
“The Searchers” (1956, dir. John Ford)
“Ugetsu Monogatari” (1953, dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)
“Vertigo” (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
Quentin Tarantino
“The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” (1966, dir. Sergio Leone)
“Apocalypse Now” (1979, dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
“The Bad News Bears” (1976, dir. Michael Ritchie)
“Carrie” (1976, dir. Brian DePalma)
“Dazed And Confused” (1993, dir. Richard Linklater)
“The Great Escape” (1963, dir. John Sturges)
“His Girl Friday” (1940, dir. Howard Hawks)
“Jaws” (1975, dir. Steven Spielberg)
“Pretty Maids All In A Row (1971, dir. Roger Vadim)
“Rolling Thunder” (1977, dir. John Flynn)
“Sorcerer” (1977, dir. William Friedkin)
“Taxi Driver” (1976, dir. Martin Scorsese)
AVATAR?!!!
Must’ve really loved the 3D.
Edgar Wright will also be included and writes about how hard it is to come up with such a list here:
http://www.edgarwrighthere.com/2012/08/01/my-sight-sound-top-10-list-not-included/
He debates between how do you make up such list, do you focus on favorites or what you think is the best.
He says you will have to wait until Sight & Sound magazine comes out to see his list, so instead includes a list he made from 2008′s Empire magazine:
“What I came up with was this: a very personal list of favourites…
1 – RAISING ARIZONA
2 – AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
3 – CARRIE
4 – RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
5 – BOOGIE NIGHTS
6 – DIRTY HARRY
7 – EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN
8 – TAXI DRIVER
9 – DON’T LOOK NOW
10 – BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
Above my number one and indeed above ranking was… RIKI OH: THE STORY OF RICKY
And scrawled below in the tiny space under my Top 10 list were these…
THIS IS SPINAL TAP
THE THING (’82)
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
BACK TO THE FUTURE
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
DUCK SOUP
SUSPIRIA
THE WILD BUNCH
DAWN OF THE DEAD ’78
And I could have filled out another 481 easy too without having to think much.”
I’m surprised to see Dawn of the Dead didn’t make it into his top ten. Maybe it was too obvious a choice after Shaun.
On his notes for his list for Sound & Vision, he includes Dawn of the Dead but a lot more than 10 movies are included, so it’s unknown how he will cut down the movies.
Perhaps he felt he had too many horror movies on this top 10 for Empire. Here he talks about how hard it is to narrow down 10 movies and what to consider:
“What to do? Share the wealth over more than a centenary of cinema? Spread your ten votes across all of world cinema? Have more than one work by the same director? (No). Have more than one film from the same genre? Be true to the movies you’ve seen a million times? Or the films that change your life with a single viewing?
So even as I am both honoured to be asked and excruciated by the process, it is a very high class problem to have.”