100 Gems

aka Films I Couldn't Help At Least Mention When Looking To Put Together My Own Top 100 Films Of All Time.

Back In June the American Film Institute redid their list of Top 100 American films of all time. It remained pretty similar to their previous crack at a top 100 list from 9 years ago and though it contains some great movies, it disappointed many people due to its rather unimaginative selection. Actually disappointed is rather a tame word...Incensed would be more appropriate for some people.

As an alternative, a number of bloggers submitted their own Top 100 lists to CinemaFusion and an Online Film Community Top 100 was created. This too seemed to disappoint many film fans due to its completely unsurprising nature.

I don't really have an issue with either list (except for perhaps agreeing with some previous comments in other blogs about needing a more diverse set of submitters to truly reflect the online community)...Not what I would pick, but they each contain some great films and have spurred some discussion. It shouldn't be surprising that the lists don't contain some left field choices though since those will tend to get dropped in favour of the more commonly chosen films. I fully expect that each submitter had their own little surprises in their personal lists, but as soon as you roll that up into the larger set - you lose the hidden gems.

So even though I'll probably post my own Top 100 (favourites - not any sort of "best" list), I thought I would start with a list of, well, random really good movies...Most of these I've only seen either once or maybe twice and just wouldn't yet crack my Top 100. Many of them might after another viewing or two though, so I just couldn't quite leave them out of a discussion of my favourite films. There's just too much good stuff here...My Top 100 list will be less exciting (ie. more well known movies), but is more accurate to the films that either very much influenced me or are just movies I go back to again and again.

In the mean time:


The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971 - Robert Fuest)
Army Of Shadows (1969 - Jean-Pierre Melville)
Baby Face (1933 - Alfred E. Green)
Bad Day At Black Rock (1955 - John Sturges)
Black Orpheus (1959 - Marcel Camus)
Born Yesterday (1950 - George Cukor)
Cat People (1942 - Jacques Tourneur)
Le Cercle Rouge (1970 - Jean-Pierre Melville)
The Changeling (1980 - Peter Medak)
Charade (1963 - Stanley Donen)
Children Of Paradise (1945 - Marcel Carne)
Christmas In Connecticut (1945 - Peter Godfrey)
Cobra Verde (1987 - Werner Herzog)
Code Unknown (2000 - Michael Haneke)
Coup De Torchon (1981 - Bertrand Tavernier)
C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005 - Jean-Marc Vallee)
Crimes And Misdemeandors (1989 - Woody Allen)
Dancer In The Dark (2000 - Lars Von Trier)
Day For Night (1973 - Francois Truffault)
Deadline (2004 - Katy Chevigny, Kirsten Johnson)
Dogtown And Z-Boys (2002 - Stacy Peralta)
Double Suicide (1969 - Masahiro Shinoda)
The Eel (1997 - Shohei Imamura)
F For Fake (1974 - Orson Welles)
Fear And Trembling (2003 - Alain Corneau)
Fireworks (1997 - Takeshi Kitano)
Un Flic (1972 - Jean-Pierre Melville)
For All Mankind (1989 - Al Reinert)
The Fountain (2006 - Darren Aronofsky)
Frailty (2001 - Bill Paxton)
Funky Forest (2005 - Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine, Shunichiro Miki)
Fury (1936 - Fritz Lang)
Gosford Park (2001 - Robert Altman)
Gunga Din (1939 - George Stevens)
Happiness Of The Katakuris (2001 - Takeshi Miike)
Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991 - Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper)
The Hidden Blade (2004 - Yoji Yamada)
Hopscotch (1980 - Ronald Neame)
How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (1967 - David Swift)
In The Shadow Of The Moon (2006 - David Sington)
Joy Luck Club (1993 - Wayne Wang)
Juliet Of The Spirits (1965 - Frederico Fellini)
Kamikaze Taxi (1994 - Masato Harada)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955 - Robert Aldrich)
Laputa: Castle In The Sky (1986 - Hayao Miyazaki)
Laura (1944 - Otto Preminger)
Lessons Of Darkness (1992 - Werner Herzog)
The Loved One (1965 - Tony Richardson)
Lover Come Back (1961 - Delbert Mann)
Le Magnifique (1973 - Philippe de Broca)
Matinee (1993 - Joe Dante)
The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek (1944 - Preston Sturges)
Murder My Sweet (1944 - Edward Dmytryk)
Near Dark (1987 - Katherine Bigelow)
Next Stop Wonderland (1998 - Brad Anderson)
Not One Less (1999 - Zhang Yimou)
Onibaba (1964 - Kaneto Shindo)
The Parallax View (1974 - Alan J. Pakula)
Paris Je T'Aime (2006 - 18 different directors)
The Pit And The Pendulum (1961 - Roger Corman)
The Prestige (2006 - Christopher Nolan)
Primer (2004 - Shane Carruth)
Pulse (2001 - Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Riding Giants (2004 - Stacy Peralta)
Rio Bravo (1959 - Howard Hawks)
The Road Home (1999 - Zhang Yimou)
Samurai Rebellion (1967 - Masaki Kobayashi)
Samurai Spy (1965 - Masahiro Shinoda)
The Sea Hawk (1940 - Michael Curtiz)
The Seagull's Laughter (2001 - Agust Gudmundsson)
Session 9 (2001 - Brad Anderson)
Shaun Of The Dead (2004 - Edgar Wright)
Smiles Of A Summer Night (1955 - Ingmar Bergman)
Sonatine (1993 - Takeshi Kitano)
Songs From The Second Floor (2000 - Roy Andersson)
Stevie (2002 - Steve James)
The Sunshine Boys (1975 - Herbert Ross)
Survive Style 5+ (2004 - Gen Sekikuchi)
Sweet Smell Of Success (1957 - Alexander Mackendrick)
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002 - Chan-wook Park)
Sympathy For The Underdog (1971 - Kinji Fukasaku)
The Tales Of Hoffmann (1951 - Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby (2006 - Adam McKay)
The Taste Of Tea (2004 - Katsuhito Ishii)
Team America: World Police (2004 - Trey Parker)
Tears Of The Black Tiger (2000 - Wisit Sasanatieng)
Three Colours - Red (1994 - Krzysztof Kieslowski)
The Times Of Harvey Milk (1984 - Rob Epstein)
To Be Or Not To Be (1942 - Ernst Lubitsch)
To Live (1994 - Zhang Yimou)
Tokyo Drifter (1966 - Seijun Suzuki)
The Triplets Of Belleville (2003 - Sylvain Chomet)
Ugetsu (1953 - Kenji Mizoguchi)
The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (1964 - Jacques Demy)
Vengo (2000 - Tony Gatlif)
Whisper Of The Heart (1995 - Yoshifumi Kondo)
Withnail And I (1986 - Bruce Robinson)
Wordplay (2006 - Patrick Creadon)
Youth Of The Beast (1963 - Seijun Suzuki)
Z (1969 - Costa-Gavras)