Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo, 1958.
Every ten years, Sight & Sound magazine, a British publication devoted to the — cue cultured BBC accent — Art of Cinema, surveys some 1,000 critics, directors and know-it-all yentas, most of whom I’ve never heard, asking them to list the ten greatest movies in the known universe.
Here’s the survey.
For the past forty years, Citizen Kane has been numero uno. But this year, the number one slot for greatest movie of all time goes to Vertigo.
This is a welcome outcome. Seraphic Secret has always felt that Kane is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Normal people — the mass audience who did not go to film school — is bored stiff by Citizen Kane.
But, I have to admit that much as I love Vertigo — Brian De Palma and I screened it while we were working on Body Double — it’s grim and depressing, with none of the wit that elevates the best Hitchcock movies. But let’s face it, critics tend to favor “serious” movies.
Definitive movie lists are a challenge. You have to make ruthless choices. After thinking about movies and the history of movies for several days, after making list after list, and after inwardly debating the merits of various films, we made our choices, and now present Seraphic Secret’s list of the Ten Greatest Movies of all time.
10. Gun Crazy, 1950
9. The Freshman, 1925
8. Double Indemnity, 1944
7. The Lady Eve, 1944
6. The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1928
5. Show People, 1928
4. Rear Window, 1954
3. The Awful Truth, 1937
2. His Girl Friday, 1940
1. The Seven Samurai, 1954
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
52 Comments
Please excuse my tardiness in coming late to this discussion. Robert’s list, as well as the commenters’ ones were very thought provoking and it’s hard to resist joining in.
It’s very difficult for me as a casual movie buff (as I’m positive it is for most professional critics) to separate personal favorites from the best. I’ll try. Several of my favorites are not fantasically made movies.
Spoiler: Citizen Kane will not be on my list. I really appreciated Robert’s note about Kane’s film school aficianados and am relieved to be absolved from the shame of boredom I feel every time I suffer through it.
In no particular order and not limited to ten:
The Awful Truth
Casablanca
Maltese Falcon
The Lady Eve
The Third Man
Rear Window
The Best Years of Our Lives
It Happened One Night
Twelve Angry Men
The Searchers
From Here to Eternity
Stagecoach
Bullitt
All About Eve
It’s a Wonderful LIfe
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Wizard of Oz
*Maybes:
My Man Godfrey
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Gone with the Wind
Rebecca
Double Indemnity
Yankee Doodle Dandy
The Great Escape
Tender Mercies
Hoosiers
The Apostle
It’s a subjective thing.
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Carla:
Fantastic list. I see my old friend—he directed my film A Stranger Among Us—Sidney Lumet made the cut with Twelve Angry Men. Great choice.
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I’m intrigued, Robert, that the latest of your Top Ten is 58 years old. Nothing is new, only forgotten, hey?
Much as I see pop music/rock and roll. All the great ideas came up early and afterwards, it’s nothing much more than recycling them.
At a glance, my fave movies are ‘Red Dust’, ‘Maltese Falcon’, ‘Rififi’. In the last few years ‘The Wrestler’, ‘Up In The Air’, ‘The Avengers’ have impressed me, but I’d have to put a lot of thought into a serious Top Ten.
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My reference here is specifically to James Stewart’s “Pieces of Time.”
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The 10 greatest COMEDIES of all time are: THE GOLD RUSH; A NIGHT AT THE OPERA; THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT; DR. STRANGELOVE; THE 12 CHAIRS; UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT; THE TALL BLOND MAN WITH ONE BLACK SHOE; SOME LIKE IT HOT; AIRPLANE; AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
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Oh my! Someone else who loves “The 12 Chairs”! I thought it was Brooks’s best movie until he released “Young Frankenstein.”
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Dear Larry: For DECADES, I’ve wished that somebody would take the oyster scene, in TOM JONES, and do something with it not unlike what Mel Brooks did with the “cowboys eating beans around the campfire” scene in BLAZING SADDLES. I want a scene where they eat the oysters and, quite probable, since TOM JONES is set in the days before refrigeration, throw up.
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I find “Dr Strangelove” overrated. When it’s good, it’s very good, but it’s patchy.
Any list of the greatest comedies should include “Monty Python And The Holy Grail”. And possibly “The Money Pit”.
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Oh, I absolutely love Money Pit (“We have weak trees!”). And Funny Farm. Both still make me laugh, and I’ve seen them over and over.
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I never heard of THE MONEY PIT.
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CORRECTION:
I never heard of THE MONEY PIT.
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What has your correction corrected?
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I inserted a space.
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Where?
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The IMDB entry on THE MONEY PIT reminded me of DON’T MAKE WAVES. Anyone else remember it? The mudslide and Tony Curtis’s house falling down the hill?
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‘Life Of Brian’ is the only movie that made me fall off the couch laughing, and that was on the fourth viewing.
“Fwow him to the fwoor!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8_jgiNqUc
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Dear Earl: The only movie that made me fall off the couch laughing was a “Masterpiece Theatre” adaption of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s “Sunset Song.” It’s SUPPOSED to be about the hard lives of desperately poor farmers in Wales. It was so like a Monty Python skit that I rolled on the floor laughing.
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I have one tiny gripe with DR. STRANGELOVE. SURELY a comedian as brilliant as Peter Sellers could have played a Nazi mad scientist without falling back on offensive anti-handicapped stereotypes.
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But Peter Sellers wasn’t a great comedian. He became famous for reading Spike Milligan scripts. Milligan was a comic genius. Sellers, left to his own devices, was second-rate. He did his “hilarious” French accent, his “hilarious” Indian accent, he wore fake noses, and he trod on rakes. He made the Three Stooges look sophisticated. Why on Earth you think he’d be above taking the piss out of someone in a wheelchair is beyond me. “Strangelove”, like most of his films, would have been far better without him.
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STANLEY KUBRICK was a good enough DIRECTOR to make a film about a Nazi mad scientist and not fall back on offensive stereotypes about evil amputees. Yes, I’m thinking of Robert Louis Stevenson, Ian Fleming and J.M. Barrie.
The Farrally Brothers make the Three Stooges look like Sheridan. Why did they make the film THE THREE STOOGES, when the originals are available and, I have no doubt, better?
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CITIZEN KANE; THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI; LA GRANDE ILLUSION; RASHOMON; THE AFRICAN QUEEN; MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN; THE WIZARD OF OZ; GONE WITH THE WIND; A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE; BEN-HUR (1959)
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CORRECTION:
CITIZEN KANE; THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI; LA GRANDE ILLUSION; RASHOMON; THE AFRICAN QUEEN; MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN; THE INFORMER; GONE WITH THE WIND; A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE; BEN-HUR (1959)
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…and as long as we are making funny and oblique comments on “other” movies, I agree with Elaine Benes on The English Patient
In that Seinfeld Episode everyone is just fawning over that movie (which I found long and boring) – and Elaine – facing ostracism from friends for her negative opinion on the matter, just said, Will he just hurry up and die?
My sentiments exactly on that movie.
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OK, I love “The English Patient”. But I tend to have a very long attention span, and often find I like films that other people say are too long.
Which reminds me… “Dances With Wolves”.
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DANCES WITH WOLVES has got to be one of the most boring, pretentious vanity projects ever made. Not only that. Louisa May Alcott, when she created the character of Dan, in Jo’s Boys, over 100 years before DANCES WITH WOLVES was filmed, created a more sympathetic, more believable portrait of a white man in sympathy with the Indians. Remember Carroll Baker, in CHEYENNE AUTUMN?
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Robert – if I were to somehow know that I have 1% of the movie knowledge you have I’d be happy. You like – or dislike – movies for all the right reasons – from a professional screenwriter’s perspective.
But I am glad we share one movie in common – Show People. I was talking to someone about one of your recent posts the other day -and how younger people aren’t even aware movies were in B & W, (curses to Ted Turner), much less silent.
And I mentioned Show People. Isn’t it dated, and the lack of sound impede your enjoyment and understanding? – I was asked.
I said that whatever technical advancements have been made in the industry – sound, color and I guess now going to digital film making – all that is secondary to the timeless message and the all-too-human experience.
A poor, naive girl, in search of fame and fortune, comes to Hollywood and finds….fame and fortune.
And she becomes – snooty. And 80 years later I can still see Marion Davies laugh – at herself, and the industry in which she made her living.
The medium – yes, was “outdated” – but the writing – and acting – are timeless. Hearst should have left her alone to do what she knew – comedy.
Plenty of technically current movies with lousy plots and/or acting.
Which would you rather see?
I have seen His Girl Friday – the dialog – from Grant is so fast – and witty – even a reference to Archibald Leach – that I missed a lot of it. Have to watch it again.
And Vertigo? I like North by Northwest – just got a copy in Blu-Ray – I’ll have to get Vertigo.
Amazon should give you a commission for all the movies Ihave bought from them on your recommendation!
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Oh, I forgot to mention “Dinner Rush”. I love that film.
OBloodyHell,
You have a point about “Bullitt”, but got to disagree about “The French Connection”. That chase has aged beautifully. Mind you, I find it helps if you remember while watching it that they really did it. Adds a certain tension.
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I agree it’s a shame that kids these days don’t appreciate or even know about black & white films
Well, I can kind of understand this… I’m just old enough to have a foot in both the pre- and post- MTV camps. I already liked and watched a lot of films from my youth, and certainly have no issues with the frenetic speed and pacing of modern film-making.
But I can say that I’ve gone back and re-watched The Three/Four Musketeers, and, though I “used” to believe these were GREAT, I’ve since noticed that they do drag an awful lot for anyone used to modern pacing. Likewise, the PBS history of Science series, “Connections” — which used MTV style pacing before MTV existed… It seemed pretty fast when it came out… but now? It looks downright “normal” in its pacing.
And lest one argue these are cherry-picked, I defy anyone to go back and watch the chase scenes from Bullitt and/or The French Connection — once considered to be “classic” and remarkably fast, with a lot of both audience and critical note for their speed, by modern standards they are really almost boring.
So I can understand how, someone used to modern pacing in video can find older TV shows and movies to be mind-numbingly slow.
They aren’t — you just have to learn to adjust your expectations — but that does take time and patience, and that’s not something everyone has any impetus to do.
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“Lawrence Of Arabia”. — To me, pretentious and boring. Cinematically beautiful, but, on the whole, one of the most uninteresting biopieces I’ve ever seen.
“Empire Of The Sun”. — “A child’s view of war”, far, far outclassed by John Boorman’s “Hope and Glory”.
“Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels”. — I’ll agree with this one.
“The Incredibles”. — and this one.
“Out Of Sight” — Really? I found it amazingly ineffective in making me give a rodent’s patootie about anyone involved in it.
Your others, I haven’t seen. None of the above should be presumed “criticism” — as in “you can’t believe that! you would be stupid to do so”. I just disagree with your choices.
As far as RJA’s list, I haven’t seen many of them, though it seems as though his list sort of ends in 1960 or so. I truly find it hard to believe there isn’t a single post-1960 movie worth making this list above some of these others that (I ack) I haven’t seen. A Kubrick movie, for God’s sake.
I’ll go along with his apparent liking for Cary Grant, though I’d pick different choices (People Will Talk, Suspicion) for his best. In terms of his choices, I’ll concur with Double Indemnity, Rear Window, and Seven Samurai…
As far as the “main” list — Vertigo? really? I know Hitch considered it one of his best films (it was one of the four he held back for decades — along with Rope, The Trouble With Harry, and Rear Window), but Robert’s own description, to me, highlights what is wrong with it: “it’s grim and depressing, with none of the wit that elevates the best Hitchcock movies.” I’ve never liked it. Give me Rear Window, Rope, Dial M, Strangers, Suspicion, or even The Lady Vanishes for Hitch’s best films. Vertigo wouldn’t even make my list of his top 10.
My own list, not going to limit it to 10, just because, with a hundred thousand plus movies, limiting any list to 1% of 1% seems just preposterous.
In no particular order:
Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels OR Snatch — either one will do.
The Incredibles — best animated movie EVER.
The Matrix
Terminator II
Amadeus
Fight Club
Pulp fiction
Hope And Glory
The Shawshank Redemption
12 Angry Men
Schindler’s List
The Godfather
The Professional
The Usual Suspects
The Fifth Element
Sunset Blvd
Dr. Strangelove
A Clockwork Orange
American Beauty
The Avengers (2012)
X-Men: First Class
The Shining
Back To The Future
The Music Man
Pygmalion
Bridge on the River Kwai
My Favorite Year
Casablanca
The Maltese Falcon
In The Name of the Father
Dark Passage
All That Jazz
Cool Hand Luke
The Princess Bride
Stand By Me
The Manchurian Candidate
Stalag 17
Double Indemnity
Rope
Harvey
The Final Countdown
Ladyhawke
Dead Poet’s Society
Minority Report
Ferris Bueller
Remo Williams
Circle of Iron
Clerks
Dangerous Liasons
Other Peoples’ Money
Let It Ride
The Philadelphia Story
Suspicion
Arsenic and Old Lace
The Three/Four Musketeers (this one, note, suffers from age. Its pre-MTV pacing, once adequate, now seems slow)
The Nightmare Before Christmas
It Happened One Night
Das Boot
You Can’t Take it With You
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The Silent Partner
A Little Romance
Harold and Maude
Enemy of the State
I could probably dig further and find others I’d put on there, but… if you have to dig, it’s probably not a proper list, since its size was relatively open-ended as it was.
I suppose I could also cut it back some… but it makes no sense. I consider all the above to be excellent movies, well worth watching or recommending.
I don’t use the criteria that it must be “serious”. “How rewatchable is it?” (i.e., does it bear watching multiple times?). Does it trigger intelligent discussion? Does it have interesting or unusual characters? Has it been done before? If so, is this at least bringing something new to the mix? (clearly, this is a rising scale, since, as time passes, less and less hasn’t already been somewhat done). Is it a significant example of a genre?
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Ibelieve your observation about pictures that don’t age well is valid, but those films are all, or almost all, about events rather than people. If a car chase or duel is the focal point then sooner or later something technological will come along and do it better, faster. If the film is about people, and by that I mean actor, then if you at any age have liked these people, the material lasts forever. On my list you might note many constants. A powerful and paternal male prescence in almost all. Accomplishment and vision from a story point of view front and center. And finally, perhaps most central to the challenge of time, warmth.
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Dear OBloodyhell: Where’s DEATH WISH?
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While Vertigo is grim and depressing, it does have the fun little light moment when Barbara Bel Geddes, in an effort to declare herself to Jimmy Stewart, paints Carlotta’s portrait with her own face on it.
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I don’t like Vertigo. It is a film for the sexless and all suupposedly about sex.
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Who is surprised by Robert’s #1 pick? But I have to agree with him, it is my all time favorite too. I just finished watching the Anime version on Netflix with my children and it was actually good. Well Robert, thanks for another list of movies to watch. This should last me until your next Top Ten.
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I agree about “Citizen Kane”: a brilliantly filmed tedious boring story. What we in the UK would call a “polished turd”. See also “Once Upon A Time In America”, one of the biggest wastes of celluloid I’ve ever sat through. And I would generally view with disdain any top ten of anything that came from the British intellectual arts crowd. They’re the most appalling bunch of snobs and regard anything actually entertaining with the utmost disdain. And they hate comedy.
I think my favourite Hitchcock is probably “Foreign Correspondent”. I agree it’s a shame that kids these days don’t appreciate or even know about black & white films, but I am so much of a philistine myself that I don’t like “Casablanca”.
I can’t come up with a top ten, but here are a few films that would be in the running.
“Lawrence Of Arabia”. Yes, yes, I know that it is a glorification of the idiotic British creation of the problems with the Arab world that plague us to this day, but it is still just incredible.
“Empire Of The Sun”. For me, hands-down Spielberg’s best film.
“Master & Commander”. I’m a bit obsessive about this film. I’ve read all O’Brian’s books, and Weir somehow got bits of all twenty of them into the one film. The books were best described as Jane Austen sur mer, and the film achieves that, which is impressive.
“The Prestige”. Christopher Nolan is a great director. It’s nice to have at least one of the greats working today.
“Singin’ In The Rain”. Best musical ever, and one of the best comedies.
“Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels”. Yes, seriously.
“The Incredibles”. Fun, comedy, excitement, cutting satire, and a great score.
“Out Of Sight”.
“Les Vacances De Monsieur Hulot”. I have rarely laughed as much as at this film.
I’ve been watching a lot of Chinese cinema lately; I think they’re coming into their own golden age right now. Sometime in the next couple of years, they’re going to make one of the greatest films of all time. The live-action version of “Mulan” was superb, as was “Little Big Soldier”.
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They’re the most appalling bunch of snobs and regard anything actually entertaining with the utmost disdain.
Dear Squandertwo: My opinion exactly of the Nobel Prize for Literature committee.
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I love Master and Commander too – I must have seen it 2 dozen times. Which reminds me to get the Blu-Ray version. Not only a great story but shows you the hard life 18th century British sailors had – a coin to repair a skull fracture? An 8 year old losing his arm in battle?
BTW I was a bit amused at a read on the history of the real jack Aubrey – the character on which he was based was a captain during our Revolutionary War – and apparently was rather successful against our ships.
We couldn’t have that in a movie today
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I saw Master & Commander this summer. I liked it, especially the quieter scenes of shipboard life, which I found eye-opening and seemed very true. “The lesser of two weevils!”
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Karen and I walked out of “Master & Commander” when the young boy was having his arm amputated. It was simply too awful.
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M&C was a great flick, being a bit of a nut for military history, I thought it captured the Georgian navy pretty well -at least, as far as I know. I have friends in the RAN and I embarrass them with history.
Russell Crowe has a ritzy apartment in the old finger wharves beside Garden Island, the Sydney base of the RAN. Being disturbed once too often by the dawn stations, he contacted the base CO with a message beginning with something like “Having played a naval commander in a movie, I can understand your situation, however…” and went on to complain about the navy being the navy.
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That was a bit grim. But he did okay in the end.
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Dear Robert: My father, of blessed memory, and I walked out of the remake of CAT PEOPLE when the man had his arm torn off.
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There is room for more than ten, a conceit I do not admire. But, with that in mind, here goes my ten. All American films.
10. The Searchers
9 How Green Was My Valley
8. The Quiet Man
7. The Adventures of Robin Hood
6. Notorious
5. His Girl Friday
4. Red River
3. And Then There Were None
2. Test Pilot
1. Gone With The Wind/Casablanca–No accident that he heroes of each said similar things and had the same initials: RB.
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Re Musicals.
So many they should have their own list, but Gigi, Singi’ In The Rain, Astaire-Rogers over all require consideration.
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Almost everybody I know who knows Errol Flynn’s movies prefers “Adventures of Robin Hood” but I’ve always thought his first starring role, “Captain Blood,” was his best.
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Dear Barry: I think CASABLANCA is a great, splendid, marvelous, wonderful tearjerker, but it’s been SHOWN TO DEATH. If you like Bogart and want a refreshing change from CASABLANCA, try PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES, KEY LARGO, THE ENFORCER, THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS, CONFLICT.
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I’ve seen them all. I think of this group Key Largo the best and Conflict fairly pathetic. The others are mood dependent. Key Largo’s has a good part for Monte Blue. I like him.
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I think PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES is the best. CONFLICT and THE ENFORCER show what a PRO Bogart was, how nuch he could do with a mediocre script. CONFLICT has a story line right out of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. THE HARDER THEY FALL is also a good, not shown to death Bogart picture, as is KID GALAHAD.
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Bogart does not possess Kid Galahad, he just happens to be in it. Depending on your point of view, this is an Edward G. Robinson picture, or it belongs to Wayne Morris. Probably not. Giving it to Bogart is like giving Gone With The Wind to Thomas Mitchell or The Quiet Man to Sean McClory. And I like Sean very much.
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Dear Barry: It’s still a good movie.
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1. Lloyd was the equal of Chaplin and Keaton. You could replace The Freshman with Safety Last or Speedy. And he was a really good guy.
2. All ten in your list could be Barbara Stanwyck movies and you’d get no argument from me. Fred MacMurray and E.G. Robinson were perfect playing off her in D.I. Stanwyck was the femme fatale all other actresses aspire to be.
3. Rear Window is the perfect metaphor for Hitchcock’s version of voyeurism. But it doesn’t match the ending of N by NW with the train entering the tunnel.
4. All ten in your list could be Cary Grant movies and you’d get no argument from me. (How did Goldie Hawn win more Oscars than Grant, Hitchcock and Stanwyck combined). His Girl Friday is another example of the great directors, in this case HH, capable of making a wide range of genres.
5. Thank you for not listing The Searchers. I love Ford and Wayne but unlike most critics I would put The Quiet Man above The Searchers. Maureen O’Hara’s red hair deserved it’s own Oscar.
6. Speaking of red hair, one movie always on my top ten is The Red Shoes. P & P got a great performance from a dancer Shearer and the look is spectacular. That’s how you adopt a fairy tale.
7. I like the Seven Samurai but it was like they were speaking a different language. I understood the version with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen better.
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1. While I don’t think Lloyd was “the equal of Chaplin and Keaton,” I agree with you that all three of his movies you named are marvelous, but “The Freshman” truly is a prize winner for me. I agree with Robert’s selection here.
2. Robert did get 2 great Barbara Stanwyck movies in. “Double Indemnity” shows her dramatic chops while “The Lady Eve” (I’m a big fan of Preston Sturges) features her lighter abilities. She made that the year after another of my favorites of hers: “Remember the Night” (written by Preston Sturges), also with Fred MacMurray.
3. “Rear Window” was the ultimate voyeur movie but “Vertigo” and even more “To Catch A Thief” were his most obvious fetish movies. “North By Northwest” is my favorite of his American period (“The 39 Steps” is my favorite of his British period) and is the ultimate expression of his “innocent man accused” theme, but how he got that ending by the censors considering how many other things they complained about, I don’t know.
4. Agreed on everything you write here.
5. Very much agreed on everything you write here — especially the incomparable Maureen O’Hara (congratulations on her recent birthday). “The Quiet Man” is my favorite John Ford movie, although I rate “The Searchers” highly, as I do the Cavalry Trilogy. BTW, knowing the kind of person John Ford was and how shocked Maureen O’Hara was at the suggestion, I’m pretty positive I know what he told her to whisper in John Wayne’s ear at the end of “The Quiet Man.”
7. I applauded when I scrolled down (slowly) to see what Robert selected for his #1 pick. Yes, “The Magnificent Seven” was wonderful — one of my favorite westerns — but there are aspects of artistry in “The Seven Samurai” that go way beyond what John Sturges and the writers did with it.
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