2021 "Theatrical" Premieres

Every year I feel as if compiling my favorite theatrical releases is a poor use of my list-making energy, and every year I do it anyway. I'm not even sure what the criterion for inclusion is anymore: I'm using Mike D'Angelo's list of 2021 commercial releases, which includes some streaming releases, as a guide. Anyway, my continually updated list of favorite films by international release date is more fun. Anything that hasn't been distributed (by the same fuzzy criteria) in New York before 2021, and that feels new according to my subjective concept of modernity, is eligible for the below list (note the prominent presence of a 2007 Mia Hansen-Løve film). In approximate order of preference:

1. All Is Forgiven (Mia Hansen-Løve, France)
2. El Planeta (Amalia Ulman, USA/Spain)
3. The Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane, India)
4. Short Vacation (Kwon Min-pyo & Seo Han-sol, South Korea)
5. Isabella (Matías Piñeiro, Argentina)
6. The Woman Who Ran (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
7. France (Bruno Dumont, France)
8. Suzanna Andler (Benoît Jacquot, France)
9. The Year of the Discovery (Luis López Carrasco, Spain)
10. About Endlessness (Roy Andersson, Sweden)
11. The Fever (Maya Da-Rin, Brazil)

Frivolous Lists: Mexico

As my movie Fourteen is in its sixth week at the Cineteca Nacional in Mexico City, I thought I'd make a list of my favorite Mexican films, in very approximate order of preference. The first list permits multiple films by the same director:

1. The Passion According to Berenice (Jaime Hermosillo)
2. Nazarin (Luis Buñuel) 
3. Matinée (Jaime Hermosillo)
4. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas)
5. Sangre (Amat Escalante)
6. Highway Patrolman (Alex Cox)
7. The Young One (Luis Buñuel)
8. Japón (Carlos Reygadas)
9. The Summer of Miss Forbes (Jaime Hermosillo)
10. Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel)

And the second list permits only one film per director. The order of preference here is even more approximate:

1. The Passion According to Berenice (Jaime Hermosillo)
2. Nazarin (Luis Buñuel) 
3. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas)
4. Sangre (Amat Escalante)
5. Highway Patrolman (Alex Cox)
6. Machete Language (Kyzza Terrazas)
7. Canoa (Felipe Cazals)
8. 40 Days (Juan Carlos Martín)
9. The Chambermaid (Lila Avilés)
10. Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón)
11. The Shadow of the Tyrant (Julio Bracho)
12. Cochochi (Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán)
13. Drama/Mex (Gerardo Naranjo)
14. Artificial Paradises (Yulene Olaizola)

 

Frivolous Lists: Israel

 Just for fun, my favorite Israeli films as of today.

1. Late Marriage (Dover Kosashvili, 2001)
2. Ben Zaken (Efrat Corem, 2014)
3. Beautiful Valley (Hadar Friedlich, 2011)
4. Kedma (Amos Gitai, 2003)
5. Or (Mon Tresor) (Keren Yedaya, 2004)
6. A Thousand Little Kisses (Mira Recanati, 1981)
7. The Wedding Plan (Rama Burshtein, 2016)
8. Slaves of the Lord (Hadar Friedlich, 2002)
9. Red Cow (Tsivia Barkai Yacov, 2018)
10. The Day After I'm Gone (Nimrod Eldar, 2019)

Top 100 Films of the 00s

Sorry to keep you all waiting! but I calculated that my list of favorite films of the 2000s wouldn't settle down until mid-2011 at least. And here we are.

I didn't try very hard to make this list a lot different from the 1999-2008 list that I posted amid the decade-end hurly-burly. But I allowed myself a few impulses that don't quite match my published lists of favorites.

1. Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, USA, 2007)
2. Esther Kahn (Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2000)
3. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, Romania, 2005)
4. Night and Day (Hong Sang-Soo, South Korea, 2008)
5. Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, UK, 2004)
6. Le doux amour des hommes (Jean-Paul Civeyrac, France, 2002)
7. The Child (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Belgium/France, 2005)
8. Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, France, 2001)
9. The Tracey Fragments (Bruce McDonald, Canada, 2007)
10. Raja (Jacques Doillon, France/Morocco, 2003)
11. Late Marriage (Dover Kosashvili, Israel/France, 2001)
12. Stella (Sylvie Verheyde, France, 2008)
13. The Sopranos: "Made in America" (David Chase, USA, 2007)
14. The House of Mirth (Terence Davies, UK/USA, 2000)
15. La face cachée de la lune (Robert Lepage, Canada, 2003)
16. The Son (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Belgium, 2002)
17. Far from Heaven (Todd Haynes, USA, 2002)
18. The Forsaken Land (Vimukthi Jayasundara, Sri Lanka/France, 2005)
19. Ana and the Others (Celina Murga, Argentina, 2003)
20. Primer (Shane Carruth, USA, 2004)
21. Le Père de mes enfants (Mia Hansen-Løve, France, 2009)
22. The Exploding Girl (Bradley Rust Gray, USA, 2009)
23. Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley, USA, 2008)
24. Bled Number One (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, Algeria/France, 2006)
25. Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, China, 2006)
26. Ballast (Lance Hammer, USA, 2008)
27. Sangre (Amat Escalante, Mexico, 2005)
28. The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan, 2005)
29. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2007)
30. A Week Alone (Celina Murga, Argentina, 2008)
31. All Around Us (Ryosuke Hashiguchi, Japan, 2008)
32. Une Vieille Maîtresse (Catherine Breillat, France, 2007)
33. Japon (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2002)
34. Waking Life (Richard Linklater, USA, 2001)
35. Bully (Larry Clark, USA, 2001)
36. Vibrator (Ryuichi Hiroki, Japan, 2003)
37. Crashing (Gary Walkow, USA, 2007)
38. Tout est pardonné (Mia Hansen-Løve, France, 2007)
39. Darling (Johan Kling, Sweden, 2007)
40. Eighteen (Jang Kun-jae, South Korea, 2009)
41. Triple Agent (Eric Rohmer, France, 2004)
42. Chopper (Andrew Dominic, Australia, 2000)
43. Platform (Jia Zhang Ke, China, 2000)
44. Zero Day (Ben Coccio, USA, 2003)
45. Happiness (Hur Jin-ho, South Korea, 2007)
46. Lady Chatterley (Pascale Ferran, France/Belgium, 2006)
47. La Donation (Bernard Émond, Canada, 2009)
48. Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2006)
49. The Garden of Earthly Delights (Lech Majewski, UK/Italy/Poland, 2004)
50. Or (Mon Tresor) (Keren Yedaya, Israel, 2004)
51. Toutes ces belles promesses (Jean-Paul Civeyrac, France, 2003)
52. Ken Park (Larry Clark and Ed Lachman, USA, 2002)
53. Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 2002)
54. Barbe Bleue (Catherine Breillat, France. 2009)
55. Jealousy Is My Middle Name (Park Chan-ok, South Korea, 2002)
56. Shara (Naomi Kawase, Japan, 2003)
57. The World (Jia Zhang-ke, China, 2004)
58. Roberto Succo (Cedric Kahn, France, 2001)
59. Îles flottantes (Nanouk Leopold, Netherlands, 2001)
60. Be My Star (Valeska Grisebach, Germany, 2001)
61. Face (Tsai Ming-Liang, France/Taiwan, 2009)
62. Avant que j'oublie (Jacques Nolot, France, 2007)
63. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, USA, 2007)
64. Grain in Ear (Zhang Lu, China/South Korea, 2005)
65. Nights and Weekends (Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig, USA, 2008)
66. Mid-August Lunch (Gianni Di Gregorio, Italy, 2008)
67. Turning Gate (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2002)
68. Wolfsbergen (Nanouk Leopold, Netherlands, 2007)
69. Jesus, You Know (Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2003)
70. Morphia (Aleksei Balabanov, Russia, 2008)
71. Paris: XY (Zeka Laplaine, France, 2001)
72. The Believer (Henry Bean, USA, 2001)
73. All or Nothing (Mike Leigh, UK, 2002)
74. Crimson Gold (Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2003)
75. No Rest for the Brave (Alain Guiraudie, France, 2003)
76. Forty Shades of Blue (Ira Sachs, USA, 2005)
77. C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean-Marc Vallée, Canada, 2005)
78. The King of Escape (Alain Guiraudie, France, 2009)
79. Rain Dogs (Ho Yuhang, Malaysia, 2006)
80. Catastrophe (David Mamet, Ireland, 2000)
81. The Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (Hong Sang-Soo, South Korea, 2000)
82. She, a Chinese (Guo Xiaolu, UK/France/Germany, 2009)
83. Johanna (Kornel Mundruczó, Hungary, 2005)
84. A Tale of Cinema (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2005)
85. Brick (Rian Johnson, USA, 2005)
86. Beat (Gary Walkow, USA, 2000)
87. Head-On (Fatih Akin, Germany/Turkey, 2004)
88. Boogie (Radu Muntean, Romania, 2008)
89. Hannah Takes the Stairs (Joe Swanberg, USA, 2007)
90. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, USA, 2001)
91. The Fluffer (Richard Glatzer and Wash West, USA, 2001)
92. To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues, Portugal, 2009)
93. The Paper Will Be Blue (Radu Muntean, Romania, 2006)
94. The Banishment (Andrei Zyvagintsev, Russia, 2007)
95. Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2001)
96. Harmful Insect (Akihiko Shiota, Japan, 2001)
97. The Days Between (Maria Speth, Germany, 2001)
98. Four Nights with Anna (Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland, 2008)
99. The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev, Russia, 2003)
100. Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures (Marcelo Gomes, Brazil, 2005)

2010 Manhattan One-Week Premieres

I might still catch a first-run 2010 movie or two, but I think I'm ready to make a ten-best list. This list is for films that played at least one week in Manhattan for the first time in 2010 - which, as I complain every year, is a pretty arbitrary grouping. But I'm in no position at all yet to make a list of 2010 international releases.

(I exclude films that were made too long ago to feel contemporary.)

1. The Father of My Children (Mia Hansen-Løve)
2. The Exploding Girl (Bradley Rust Gray)
3. Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat)
4. Mid-August Lunch (Gianni di Gregorio)
5. Between Two Worlds (Vimukthi Jayasundara)
6. Audrey the Trainwreck (Frank V. Ross)
7. Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz)
8. Anton Chekhov's The Duel (Dover Kosashvili)
9. Barking Water (Sterlin Harjo)
10. How Do You Know (James L. Brooks)

Honorable mention: Animal Kingdom (David Michôd). And I'll add two others that could go up or down after another viewing: Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham) and Unstoppable (Tony Scott).

Special category for a uniquely confusing film: Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky). In the unstable transition period following this film's challenge to my aesthetic system, I can imagine putting it in any of the categories above or below.

Films with a lot going for them, in alphabetical order: Another Year (Mike Leigh), Around a Small Mountain (Jacques Rivette), The City of Your Final Destination (James Ivory), Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos), Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé), The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski), Hadewijch (Bruno Dumont), The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet), Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek), Open Five (Kentucker Audley), Soul Kitchen (Fatih Akin), The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira), Sweetgrass (Ilisa Barbash & Lucien Castaing-Taylor), True Grit (Joel Coen & Ethan Coen).

Films with something going for them, in alphabetical order: Ajami (Scandar Copti & Yaron Shani), All Good Things (Andrew Jarecki), The Anchorage (C.W Winter & Anders Edstrom), Breaking Upwards (Daryl Wein), Delta (Kornel Mundruczó), Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold), George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead (George A. Romero), I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino), Inspector Bellamy (Claude Chabrol), The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko), Lourdes (Jessica Hausner), Mesrine: Killer Instinct (Jean-Francois Richet), Mundane History (Anocha Suwichakornpong), Ne change rien (Pedro Costa), Tirador (Brillante Mendoza), Women Without Men (Shirin Neshat).

Films that mostly didn't work for me, in alphabetical order: Alamar (Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio), Daddy Longlegs (Josh Safdie & Benny Safdie), Due Date (Todd Phillips), Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (Manoel de Oliveira), Everyone Else (Maren Ade), Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy), The Fighter (David O. Russell), Get Low (Aaron Schneider), Greenberg (Noah Baumbach), Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea), I Love You Phillip Morris (Glenn Ficarra & John Requa), The King's Speech (Tom Hooper), Leaving (Catherine Corsini), Lebanon (Samuel Maoz), Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 (Jean-Francois Richet), The Milk of Sorrow (Claudia Llosa), Mother (Bong Joon-ho), Our Beloved Month of August (Miguel Gomes), Outside the Law (Rachid Bouchareb), Red Riding: 1980 (James Marsh), Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-dong), Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese), The Social Network (David Fincher), Somewhere (Sofia Coppola), Spring Fever (Lou Ye), Trash Humpers (Harmony Korine), Vincere (Marco Bellocchio), Welcome (Philippe Lioret), White Material (Claire Denis), Wild Grass (Alain Resnais), Winter's Bone (Debra Granik), You Wont Miss Me (Ry Russo-Young).

A lot of directors I admire placed films in the last category, which must mean that I'm an unusually fickle sort of auteurist.

2010 Wrap-Ups at MUBI

I made two contributions to MUBI's 2010 wrap-ups: an item in this compilation of present/past fantasy double features; and a top-five list of "new old movies" seen in 2010.

Frivolous Lists: Latin America, 2000-2009

Cinema Tropical recently polled 35 experts to create a list of the ten best Latin American films of the decade, and the IFC Center screened the ten winners last week. No one asked me for my list, but:

1. Ana y los otros (Ana and the Others) (Celina Murga, Argentina, 2003)
2. Sangre (Amat Escalante, Mexico, 2005)
3. Japón (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2002)
4. Stellet licht (Silent Light) (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2007)
5. Una semana solos (A Week Alone) (Celina Murga, Argentina, 2008)
6. Cinema, aspirinas e urubus (Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures) (Marcelo Gomes, Brazil, 2005)
7. Mutum (Sandra Kogut, Brazil, 2007)
8. Huacho (Alejandro Fernández Almendras, Chile, 2009)
9. Os Inquilinos (The Tenants) (Sergio Bianchi, Brazil, 2009)
10. 40 dias (40 Days) (Juan Carlos Martín, Mexico, 2008)

Runners-up (in alphabetical order): Amorosa Soledad (Victoria Galardi and Martín Carranza, Argentina, 2008); Aniceto (Leonardo Favio, Argentina, 2008); Cochochi (Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán, Mexico, 2007); El custodio (Rodrigo Moreno, Mexico, 2006); Drama/Mex (Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico, 2006); Los guantes mágicos (The Magic Gloves) (Martin Rejtman, Argentina, 2003); Hamaca Paraguaya (Paraguayan Hammock) (Paz Encina, Paraguay, 2006); Jogo de cena (Playing) (Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil, 2007); Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina, 2008); O céu de Suely (Suely in the Sky) (Karim Aïnouz, Brazil, 2006); Parentésis (Time Off) (Pablo Solís and Francisca Schweitzer, Chile, 2005); Voy a explotar (I'm Gonna Explode) (Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico, 2008); Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico, 2001).

Of course there are a great many contenders that I haven't seen. Of those, I especially wish I had caught Los bastardos (Amat Escalante, Mexico, 2008) and Madame Satã (Karim Aïnouz, Brazil, 2002).

2009 Manhattan One-Week Theatrical Premieres

Here are my favorite films that received their first one-week theatrical run in Manhattan during 2009. (I exclude films that were made too long ago to feel contemporary.)

1. Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo)
2. Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley)
3. C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean-Marc Vallée)
4. Desert Dream (Zhang Lu)
5. Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone)
6. Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodovar)
7. Me and Orson Welles (Richard Linklater)
8. Chelsea on the Rocks (Abel Ferrara)
9. Paradise (Michael Almereyda)
10. Medicine for Melancholy (Barry Jenkins)

More than half of these films received no national distribution, barely squeaking out one-week runs at NYC specialty venues. Which underlines the arbitrariness of a Manhattan premiere list...but whatever. (I keep a running list of my favorite films by date of international release.)

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski); I'm Gonna Explode (Gerardo Naranjo); Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso); Lorna's Silence (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne); Tokyo: "Merde" (Leos Carax); Two Lovers (James Gray); The Vanished Empire (Karen Shakhnazarov).

Films with a lot going for them: California Dreamin' (Cristian Nemescu); Extract (Mike Judge); Frontier of Dawn (Philippe Garrel); The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow); Il Divo (Paolo Sorrentino); Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino); The International (Tom Tykwer); The Merry Gentleman (Michael Keaton); Perestroika (Slava Tsukerman); Pontypool (Bruce McDonald); Revanche (Gotz Spielmann); A Single Man (Tom Ford); Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa); Treeless Mountain (So Yong Kim); Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy); The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke); You, the Living (Roy Andersson).

Films with something going for them: Adoration (Atom Egoyan); The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson); Cargo 200 (Alexei Balabanov); Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson); Flower in the Pocket (Liew Seng Tat); Goodbye Solo (Ramin Bahrani); The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel); Serbis (Brilliante Mendoza); A Serious Man (Joel Coen & Ethan Coen); Somers Town (Shane Meadows); Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas); The Sun (Alexander Sokurov); 24 City (Jia Zhang-ke); Up in the Air (Jason Reitman); Ward No. 6 (Karen Shakhnazarov & Aleksandr Gornovsky).

Among the films I couldn't get into: Adventureland (Greg Mottola); Afterschool (Antonio Campos); Avatar (James Cameron); Birdsong (Albert Serra); The Box (Richard Kelly); Cheri (Stephen Frears); Duplicity (Tony Gilroy); The Girlfriend Experience (Steven Soderbergh); Home (Ursula Meier); Hunger (Steve McQueen); Import Export (Ulrich Seidl); Jerichow (Christian Petzold); Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke); The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch); Loren Cass (Chris Fuller); Megane (Naoko Ogigami); Moon (Duncan Jones); Munyurangabo (Lee Isaac Chung); My Dear Enemy (Lee Yoon-ki); My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (Werner Herzog); Paris (Cedric Klapisch); The Pope's Toilet (Cesar Charlone & Enrique Fernandez); Public Enemies (Michael Mann); Shall We Kiss? (Emmanuel Mouret); Taxidermia (Gyorgy Palfi); 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis); Tony Manero (Pablo Larrain); Tyson (James Toback); Unmade Beds (Alexis Dos Santos); The Young Victoria (Jean-Marc Vallée).

My 100 Favorite Films of 1999-2008

Everyone is making lists of their favorite films of the 00s, and I've been feeling left out. I do enjoy a good list, but not when it feels premature; and the vagaries of international distribution make it impossible for all but a few ardent festival-hoppers to know yet what has happened in 2009. Even my list of 2008 favorites is just stabilizing.

A solution finally occurred to me: exclude 2009 from my decade list, and include 1999, which was shafted in the last round of decade-end list making.

My 100 favorite films of 1999-2008, in very, very approximate order of preference.

1. Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, USA, 2007)
2. Esther Kahn (Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2000)
3. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, Romania, 2005)
4. Night and Day (Hong Sang-Soo, South Korea, 2008)
5. Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, UK, 2004)
6. The Child (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Belgium/France, 2005)
7. Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, France, 2001)
8. M/Other (Nobuhiro Suwa, Japan, 1999)
9. The Tracey Fragments (Bruce McDonald, Canada, 2007)
10. Raja (Jacques Doillon, France/Morocco, 2003)
11. Late Marriage (Dover Kosashvili, Israel/France, 2001)
12. The Sopranos: "Made in America" (David Chase, USA, 2007)
13. The House of Mirth (Terence Davies, UK/USA, 2000)
14. La face cachée de la lune (Robert Lepage, Canada, 2003)
15. The Son (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Belgium, 2002)
16. Far from Heaven (Todd Haynes, USA, 2002)
17. The Forsaken Land (Vimukthi Jayasundara, Sri Lanka/France, 2005)
18. Ana and the Others (Celina Murga, Argentina, 2003)
19. Primer (Shane Carruth, USA, 2004)
20. Topsy-Turvy (Mike Leigh, UK, 1999)
21. Bled Number One (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, Algeria/France, 2006)
22. La Puce (Emmanuelle Bercot, France, 1999)
23. Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, China, 2006)
24. Ballast (Lance Hammer, USA, 2008)
25. Sangre (Amat Escalante, Mexico, 2005)
26. The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan, 2005)
27. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2007)
28. A Week Alone (Celina Murga, Argentina, 2008)
29. All Around Us (Ryosuke Hashiguchi, Japan, 2008)
30. Une Vieille Maîtresse (Catherine Breillat, France, 2007)
31. Japon (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2002)
32. Waking Life (Richard Linklater, USA, 2001)
33. Bully (Larry Clark, USA, 2001)
34. Vibrator (Ryuichi Hiroki, Japan, 2003)
35. Crashing (Gary Walkow, USA, 2007)
36. Tout est pardonné (Mia Hansen-Løve, France, 2007)
37. Darling (Johan Kling, Sweden, 2007)
38. Triple Agent (Eric Rohmer, France, 2004)
39. Chopper (Andrew Dominic, Australia, 2000)
40. Zero Day (Ben Coccio, USA, 2003)
41. Happiness (Hur Jin-ho, South Korea, 2007)
42. Lady Chatterley (Pascale Ferran, France/Belgium, 2006)
43. Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2006)
44. Haut les coeurs! (Solveig Anspach, France, 1999)
45. The Garden of Earthly Delights (Lech Majewski, UK/Italy/Poland, 2004)
46. Or (Mon Tresor) (Keren Yedaya, Israel, 2004)
47. Toutes ces belles promesses (Jean-Paul Civeyrac, France, 2003)
48. Ken Park (Larry Clark and Ed Lachman, USA, 2002)
49. Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 2002)
50. Jealousy Is My Middle Name (Park Chan-ok, South Korea, 2002)
51. Shara (Naomi Kawase, Japan, 2003)
52. Return of the Idiot (Saša Gedeon, Czech Republic, 1999)
53. The World (Jia Zhang-ke, China, 2004)
54. Roberto Succo (Cedric Kahn, France, 2000)
55. Be My Star (Valeska Grisebach, Germany, 2001)
56. Avant que j'oublie (Jacques Nolot, France, 2007)
57. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, USA, 2007)
58. Stella (Sylvia Verheyde, France, 2008)
59. Grain in Ear (Zhang Lu, China/South Korea, 2005)
60. Nights and Weekends (Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig, USA, 2008)
61. Mid-August Lunch (Gianni Di Gregorio, Italy, 2008)
62. Turning Gate (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2002)
63. Wolfsbergen (Nanouk Leopold, Netherlands, 2007)
64. Jesus, You Know (Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2003)
65. Paris: XY (Zeka Laplaine, France, 2001)
66. The Believer (Henry Bean, USA, 2001)
67. All or Nothing (Mike Leigh, UK, 2002)
68. Crimson Gold (Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2003)
69. No Rest for the Brave (Alain Guiraudie, France, 2003)
70. Forty Shades of Blue (Ira Sachs, USA, 2005)
71. C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean-Marc Vallée, Canada, 2005)
72. Rain Dogs (Ho Yuhang, Malaysia, 2006)
73. Catastrophe (David Mamet, Ireland, 2000)
74. The Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (Hong Sang-Soo, South Korea, 2000)
75. Johanna (Kornel Mundruczó, Hungary, 2005)
76. A Tale of Cinema (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2005)
77. Brick (Rian Johnson, USA, 2005)
78. Beat (Gary Walkow, USA, 2000)
79. Head-On (Fatih Akin, Germany/Turkey, 2004)
80. One More Day (Babak Payami, Iran, 1999)
81. The Sopranos (pilot) (David Chase, USA, 1999)
82. Boogie (Radu Muntean, Romania, 2008)
83. Hannah Takes the Stairs (Joe Swanberg, USA, 2007)
84. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, USA, 2001)
85. The Fluffer (Richard Glatzer and Wash West, USA, 2001)
86. The Paper Will Be Blue (Radu Muntean, Romania, 2006)
87. The Banishment (Andrei Zyvagintsev, Russia, 2007)
88. Platform (Jia Zhang Ke, China, 2000)
89. Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2001)
90. Harmful Insect (Akihiko Shiota, Japan, 2001)
91. The Days Between (Maria Speth, Germany, 2001)
92. Idle Running (Janez Burger, Slovenia, 1999)
93. Four Nights with Anna (Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland, 2008)
94. The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev, Russia, 2003)
95. Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures (Marcelo Gomes, Brazil, 2005)
96. Qui a tué Bambi? (Gilles Marchand, France, 2003)
97. The Tuner (Kira Muratova, Russia, 2004)
98. Mutum (Sandra Kogut, Brazil, 2007)
99. The Embalmer (Matteo Garrone, Italy, 2002)
100. Palindromes (Todd Solondz, USA, 2004)

The decade shows its strength in long lists like this. The 00s had a great bench: talent showed up in more places than ever before, and in as great quantity as in any period of cinema history.

Frivolous Lists: Italy

As I'm attending the Neorealism series at the Walter Reade, I idly put together a list of my all-time favorite Italian films - one film per director.

1. Paisà (Roberto Rossellini, 1946)
2. L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
3. Alfredo, Alfredo (Pietro Germi, 1972)
4. La signora di tutti (Max Ophüls, 1934)
5. L'Assassino (Elio Petri, 1961)
6. Io la conoscevo bene (I Knew Her Well) (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1965)
7. Pranzo di ferragosto (Mid-August Lunch) (Gianni Di Gregorio, 2008)
8. Dillinger è morto (Dillinger Is Dead) (Marco Ferreri, 1969)
9. Banditi a Orgosolo (Bandits of Orgosolo) (Vittorio De Seta, 1961)
10. Kaos (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1984)

Without a one-film-per-director rule, Viaggio in Italia, Cronaca di un amore, and Il grido would no doubt have shoved their way in. The newest film on my list, Pranzo di ferragosto, is slated for a theatrical premiere at Film Forum on March 17, 2010.

The 50 Greatest Films

Iain Stott's blog, the One-Line Review, is conducting a poll of "The 50 Greatest Films," and I have submitted my entry. Unless one revisits all the candidates within a short period of time, polls like this are bound to be exercises in "individual whimsical expression" (can anyone name the movie on my top-50 list that this quote comes from?), so please take my list in the spirit of fun. By the way, Anne and Muriel is the UK title of Les deux anglaises et le continent (Two English Girls).

2008 Lists (Long Version)

Okay, I'm getting tired of tracking down 2008 releases - it's time to move on. So here's my wrap-up of films that received their first one-week theatrical run in New York during 2008. (I exclude films that were made too long ago to feel contemporary.)

The ten-best list that I published at the Auteurs' Notebook needs modification, because I saw Silent Light a second time and got more excited about it. And also because I guess I'll stop my list at nine.

1. The Tracey Fragments (Bruce McDonald)
2. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas)
3. Ballast (Lance Hammer)
4. Still Life (Jia Zhang-Ke)
5. Une vieille maîtresse (The Last Mistress) (Catherine Breillat)
6. Nights and Weekends (Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig)
7. Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo)
8. Before I Forget (Jacques Nolot)
9. The Wackness (Jonathan Levine)

Any film on this list of honorable mentions (in alphabetical order) could fill the tenth slot: Beaufort (Joseph Cedar), Entre les murs (The Class) (Laurent Cantet), In the City of Sylvia (José Luis Guerín), Leatherheads (George Clooney), Opera Jawa (Garin Nugroho), Paraguayan Hammock (Paz Encina), Poor Boy's Game (Clement Virgo), Stuff and Dough (Cristi Puiu).

Films with a lot going for them: Alexandra (Alexander Sokurov), Burn After Reading (Joel Coen & Ethan Coen), Ne touchez pas la hache (The Duchess of Langeais) (Jacques Rivette), The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin), Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog), Good Dick (Marianna Palka), Hamlet 2 (Andrew Fleming), Milk (Gus Van Sant), My Brother Is an Only Child (Daniele Luchetti), Romance of Astree and Celadon (Eric Rohmer), Shotgun Stories (Jeff Nichols), The Silence Before Bach (Pere Portabella), Son of Rambow (Garth Jennings), Summer Palace (Lou Ye), Take Out (Sean Baker & Tsou Shih-ching), Waltz With Bashir (Ari Folman), (Naissance des pieuvres) Water Lilies (Céline Sciamma).

Films with something going for them: Alice's House (Chico Teixeira), Appaloosa (Ed Harris), Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry), Beauty in Trouble (Jan Hrebejk), Brick Lane (Sarah Gavron), Canary (Akihiko Shiota), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher), Elite Squad (Jose Padilha), Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-hsien), Four Christmases (Seth Gordon), 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu), A Girl Cut in Two (Claude Chabrol), Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh), La Question humaine (Heartbeat Detector) (Nicolas Klotz), I Served the King of England (Jiri Menzel), Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson), Love Songs (Christophe Honoré), The Man From London (Bela Tarr), Mukhsin (Yasmin Ahmad), My Blueberry Nights (Wong Kar Wai), My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin), Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant), The Pleasure of Being Robbed (Joshua Safdie), Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (John Gianvito), Reprise (Joachim Trier), Roman de gare (Claude Lelouch), Slingshot (Brillante Mendoza), Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris), Stuck (Stuart Gordon), Warsaw Bridge (Pere Portabella), Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt), Wonderful Town (Aditya Assarat), Yes Man (Peyton Reed).

Films that some people liked but I couldn't get into: Baghead (Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass), Che Part I (Steven Soderbergh), A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin), Frownland (Ronald Bronstein), Diary of the Dead (George A. Romero), I've Loved You So Long (Philippe Claudel), JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri), Jellyfish (Shira Geffen & Etgar Keret), La France (Serge Bozon), Liberty Kid (Ilya Chaiken), Married Life (Ira Sachs), Mary (Abel Ferrara), Momma's Man (Azazel Jacobs), My Father, My Lord (David Volach), Noise (Henry Bean), Of Time and the City (Terence Davies), The Other Half (Liang Ying), The Pool (Chris Smith), Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme), La Graine et le mulet (The Secret of the Grain) (Abdellatif Kechiche), Snow Angels (David Gordon Green), Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman), Taking Father Home (Liang Ying), Tehilim (Raphael Nadjari), Times and Winds (Reha Erdem), WALL*E (Andrew Stanton), The Wedding Director (Marco Bellocchio), The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky), XXY (Lucía Puenzo), Yella (Christian Petzold).

2008 Lists

The lists of my favorite New York one-week theatrical releases of 2008, and of my favorite 2008 international premieres, are up at the Auteurs' Notebook. Sometime in January, after I've seen all the 2008 theatrical premieres I'm likely to see, I'll post a more detailed breakdown of my year's theatrical experience. The international premiere list will change a lot over the course of the next year or 18 months; I'll post updates periodically on my running list of favorite films.

Frivolous Lists: Poland

In honor of my recent trip to Kraków for the Off Camera Independent Film Festival, here is a list of my favorite Polish films:

1. Iluminacja (Illumination) (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1973)
2. Wojaczek (Lech Majewski, 1999)
3. Matka Joanna od aniolów (Mother Joan of the Angels) (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1961)
4. Czlowiek na torze (Man on the Tracks) (Andrzej Munk, 1957)
5. Smierc prezydenta (Death of a President) (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1978)
6. Walkower (Walkover) (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1965)
7. Gdy spadaja anioly (When Angels Fall) (Roman Polanski, 1959)
8. Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water) (Roman Polanski, 1962)
9. Kung-Fu (Janusz Kijowski, 1979)
10. Przypadek (Blind Chance) (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1987)

Of course, I haven’t seen a great many celebrated Polish films, classic and recent. I note that some of the directors I mention above did their best work outside of Poland: I’d probably choose Chinatown (1974) over Polanski’s Polish films, Deep End (1970) over Walkower, The Garden of Earthly Delights (2004) over Wojaczek. (However, my minority opinion is that Kieslowski’s early Polish work is superior to his later international productions.)

Frivolous Lists: Japan, 1998-2007

A recent blog post by Michael Kerpan made me think about my favorite Japanese films of the last decade. In order of preference:

1. M/Other (Nobuhiro Suwa, 1999)
2. Vibrator (Ryuichi Hiroki, 2003)
3. Sharasojyu (Shara) (Naomi Kawase, 2003)
4. Gaichu (Harmful Insect) (Akihiko Shiota, 2001)
5. Yawarakai seikatsu (It's Only Talk) (Ryuichi Hiroki, 2005)
6. Kanzo sensei (Dr. Akagi) (Shohei Imamura, 1998)
7. Hush! (Ryosuke Hashiguchi, 2001)
8. Tony Takitani (Jun Ichikawa, 2004)
9. Kaza-hana (Shinji Sômai, 2000)
10. Yurîka (Eureka) (Shinji Aoyama, 2000)

There are countless interesting-looking Japanese films from this period that I haven't seen, so this list is even more frivolous than other lists.

2007 Lists

I like making lists, but only when the parameters are meaningful. There is always something arbitrary about making a list of theatrical premieres in your home city, and even more so lately, with an increasing number of good movies eking out a bare one-week run in specialty venues. I'm fonder of lists of world premieres, because they better reflect the state of production at a moment in time. But only the most ardent festival-hoppers can make a stable world-premiere list at year's end; the flow of 2007 films into New York theaters will continue unabated throughout 2008. Now is actually a good time for a list of 2006 world premieres, but no one would care.

I keep my lists of world premieres online and update them every few months, so you can check them any time you want. Here's a list of my favorite films that received their first one-week theatrical run in New York during 2007. (I exclude films that were made too long ago to feel contemporary.) The director's name follows the film title. This year's list wants to stop at nine, so I will oblige it:

1. The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang)
2. Lady Chatterley (Pascale Ferran)
3. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson)
4. Vanaja (Rajnesh Domalpalli)
5. Flanders (Bruno Dumont)
6. Hannah Takes the Stairs (Joe Swanberg)
7. Stephanie Daley (Hilary Brougher)
8. Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev)
9. Summer '04 (Stefan Krohmer)

A pleasing list of honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): Bug (William Friedkin), Charlie Wilson's War (Mike Nichols), Drama/Mex (Gerardo Naranjo), Death Proof (Quentin Tarantino), Love for Sale (Suely in the Sky) (Karim Aïnouz), Offside (Jafar Panahi), We Own the Night (James Gray), Whole New Thing (Amnon Buchbinder).

Films with a lot going for them: Close to Home (Vardit Bilu and Dalia Hagar), Comedy of Power (Claude Chabrol), Delirious (Tom DiCillo), Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg), Fay Grim (Hal Hartley), Glass Lips (Blood of a Poet) (Lech Majewski), I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-liang), In Between Days (So Yong Kim), Joshua (George Ratliff), Longing (Valeska Grisebach), Los Muertos (Lisandro Alonso), No Country for Old Men (Ethan Coen and Joel Coen), Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud), Private Fears in Public Places (Coeurs) (Alain Resnais), This Is England (Shane Meadows).

Films with something going for them: The Bothersome Man (Jens Lien), Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa), Dans Paris (Christophe Honoré), Daratt (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel), The Host (Bong Joon-ho), I'm Not There (Todd Haynes), Juno (Jason Reitman), The Man of My Life (Zabou Breitman), Once (John Carney), Private Property (Joachim Lafosse), Quiet City (Aaron Katz), Honor de cavalleria (Quixotic) (Albert Serra), Red Road (Andrea Arnold), The Rocket (Rocket Richard) (Charles Binamé), Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul), White Palms (Szabolcs Hajdu), Wild Tigers I Have Known (Cam Archer).

Films that some people liked more than I did: 12:08 East of Bucharest (Corneliu Porumboiu), 13 Lakes (James Benning), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik), Atonement (Joe Wright), Away From Her (Sarah Polley), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (Sidney Lumet), Beowulf (Robert Zemeckis), Dam Street (Li Yu), Falling (Barbara Albert), The Go Master (Tian Zhuangzhuang), I Love You (Volim Te) (Dalibor Matanic), Into the Wild (Sean Penn), Jindabyne (Ray Lawrence), Margot at the Wedding (Noah Baumbach), Poison Friends (Emmanuel Bourdieu), Radiant City (Jim Brown and Gary Burns), Rocket Science (Jeffrey Blitz), The Situation (Philip Haas), Southland Tales (Richard Kelly), Sunshine (Danny Boyle), Tears of the Black Tiger (Wisit Sasanatieng), Planet Terror (Robert Rodriguez), There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson), Zodiac (David Fincher), Zoo (Robinson Devor).

Not Completely Frivolous Lists: Women's Names

In honor of the upcoming NYC screening of Esther Kahn, here is a list of my ten favorite films whose title consists solely of a woman's full name:

• Daisy Kenyon
• Esther Kahn
• Cluny Brown
• Vera Drake
• Sylvia Scarlett
• Lola Montes
• Annie Hall
• Vanina Vanini
• Effi Briest
• Nora Helmer
  

(Given how poorly Woody Allen's films have been faring with me on revisits, I'm hesitant to select Annie Hall...but I'll let it stand for now.)

And, just to be comprehensively silly, here's a list of my ten favorite films whose title consists solely of a woman's first name:

• Gertrud
• Christine (Alan Clarke)
• Petulia
• Alyonka
• Raja
• Marnie
• Lola (Fassbinder)
• Camille
• Eva
• Muriel
  

I made these lists because of an undocumented feeling that a disproportionate number of my favorite films are named after women. (I can verify that the list of films with men's names that I like at this level is about half the length of the women's list.) And I don't think this is a purely personal preference: I think that the auteurist tradition, which I absorbed as a novice cinephile, leans gynophilic.

The reasons for this leaning strike me as far from feminist. Certainly one notes that naming a film after a woman is akin to objectification.

To speculate further: tradition has ensured that male-centered films have often been about the exercise of power, about creating or altering destiny; and female-centered films have often been about being acted upon, about being at the mercy of larger forces, about destiny altering the protagonist.

It would follow that male-centered films would be more likely vehicles for the audience's power fantasies. Sometimes these fantasies are individualist: commercial cinema always has a prominent place for action-adventure films with powerful, victorious male heroes. Sometimes they are political - and cinema's political movements, which necessarily are built on power fantasies, have different ways of dealing with gender-based power issues. The Soviet cinema, for instance, made an official effort (I'll leave to historians the question of how successful the effort was) to invest women with a mythology of power rather than passivity; the woman's movement has had a similar tendency. On the other side, it often seems to me that the old American left, which grew as a social and cinematic force in the 30s, embraced the traditional masculine role, and occasionally risked misogyny by equating woman with the temptations of home and security that must be resisted by the politically committed male.

The politique des auteurs was associated in 50s France with a Catholic position, and frequently with a right-wing position. Positif, the magazine that most vigorously opposed the auteurism of Cahiers du Cinema, was committed to the political left, and saw the advocates of the politique as little more than fascists. (English-language readers who are interested in the history of the politique should try to find a copy of Peter Graham's out-of-print collection The New Wave, which translates and reprints articles from Positif, Cahiers and other magazines that illustrate the political issues at stake.)

I've always believed that the Catholic origins of auteurism, obscured over the years by other layers of ideology, had a lot to do with the prominence in the auteurist canon of films in which the world is a vale of tears, and protagonists (often women) are buffeted about by forces outside themselves, finding at best a spiritual victory. And Positif's tastes in American cinema, which reflected their political commitment, strike me as rather male-oriented.

I happen to feel that, in the final analysis, vale-of-tears movies reflect the human condition better than movies about victory over adversity. (As Pialat said in a late interview: "Death - it's not an improvement.") Not that you can't have good movies with active protagonists: the human condition covers a lot of territory. But this leaning of mine is probably the reason that my lists of favorite films contain so many movies with women's names.

Frivolous Lists: TIFF 2007

Vadim Rizov asked me to do a wrapup post for this year's Toronto International Film Festival. I'm actually going to write about the fest for Senses of Cinema, so I don't want to spill my seed on the ground by blogging about it. But here's a list of my favorite films at TIFF 2007.

1. Bruce McDonald's The Tracey Fragments. Someday I will blog on this.
2. Hur Jin-Ho's Happiness.
3. Jacques Nolot's Avant que j'oublie.
4. Andrei Zyvyagintsev's The Banishment.
5. Sandra Kogut's Mutum.
6. Francis Mankiewicz's Les Bons debarras. This is a 1980 film, which I hadn't seen since it got a US release back in the day. Anyone know about the rest of Mankiewicz's career? I doubt very much it's an accident. Marie Tifo and Charlotte Laurier are both amazing.
7. Carlos Reygadas's Silent Light.
8. Nanouk Leopold's Wolfsbergen.
9. Ben Hackworth's Corroboree.
10. Cristian Nemescu's California Dreamin' (Endless). This list naturally wants to stop at nine, but I'll observe tradition.

I'm saving some juicy prospects for NYFF (Une vieille maîtresse, Secret Sunshine, In the City of Sylvia, Useless, La Fille coupée en deux) or for their theatrical releases (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, I'm Not There).

Frivolous Lists: China

The subject sort of came up recently on a_film_by, so I made a list of my favorite Chinese films:

1. STILL LIFE (Jia Zhang Ke, 2006)
2. THE DAYS (Wang Xiaoshuai, 1993)
3. GRAIN IN EAR (Zhang Lu, 2005)
4. THE WORLD (Jia Zhang Ke, 2004)
5. PLATFORM (Jia Zhang Ke, 2000)
6. QUEEN OF SPORTS (Sun Yu, 1934)
7. ON THE BEAT (Ning Ying, 1995)
8. THE HIGHWAY/THE BIG ROAD (Sun Yu, 1934)
9. ZHOU YU'S TRAIN (Sun Zhou, 2002)
10. XIAO WU (Jia Zhang Ke, 1997)

I didn't include Taiwan and Hong Kong, which feel like different film cultures to me.

Wang pretty much lost it, I'd say, after THE DAYS and maybe FROZEN; it's weird to remember that I liked him that much.

I'd love to see Sun Yu's later films: he was just getting really good when I lost track of his career.