Your favourite film by decade.

20s: Nosferatu (Murnau)
30s: Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
40s: Sergeant York (Hawks)
50s: Rio Bravo (Hawks)
60s: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone)
70s: AAARGH TOO MANY TOO MANY let's say Alien (Scott)
80s: Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (Danielsson)
90s: Hana-Bi (Takeshi(?))
00s: Spirited Away (Miyazaki)

1930s - Bride of Frankenstein (1935, Whale)

1940s - Song of the South (1946, Foster/ Jackson)

1950s - North by Northwest (1959, Hitchcock)

1960s - Midnight Cowboy (1969, Schlesinger)

1970s - Godfather/ Godfather 2 (1972, 1974 - For Coppola)

1980s - After Hours - (1985, Scorsese)

1990s - Reservoir Dogs - (1991, Tarantino)

2000s - Courching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Lee)

I think anyway. I think that's my favourites.

30s: M (Lang)
40s: The Big Sleep (Hawks)
50s: World of Apu (Ray)
60s: A Hard Day's Night (Lester)
70s: Mean Streets (Scorsese)
80s: Elephant Man (Lynch)
90s: Boogie Nights (Anderson)
00s: The Virgin Suicides (Coppola)

Hana Bi from Takeshi Kitano

definetely !

I've always thought it was too bad that Terry Gilliam has never been able to make "The Watchmen", that could also be a good movie. It isn't like it would take a whole lot of storyboarding.

I'll have to think about my list.

It seems I have the most pedestrian taste here, or that I've simply not seen that many films.

'20s: Sunrise (Murnau)
'30s: Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)
'40s: Ivan the Terrible (Eisenstein)
'50s: All That Heaven Allows (Sirk)
'60s: Gertrud (Dreyer)
'70s: The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (Brakhage)
'80s: Dressed to Kill (De Palma)
'90s: Showgirls (Verhoeven)
'00s: Ten (Kiarostami)

It's particularly hard to see the '60s and '70s boiled down to two films, great as I think they are. It's also a bit off to see how many were introduced to be by the Criterion line of dvds.

pre-40s: slapsticks aside, a total snorefest to me...
40s: double indemnity - billy wilder
50s: shane - george stevens
60s: the misfits - john huston
70s: slap shot - george roy hill
80s: withnail & i - bruce robinson
90s: naked - mike leigh
00s: crouching tiger, hidden dragon - ang lee

i'd really feel more comfortable with a pox per decade so i could appear a bit more worldly...

The rest starts out deeply canonical and ends up moderately canonical:
'20s: The Passion of Joan of Arc
'30s: Choose a Renoir
'40s: That one about Hearst (mega-bravery points to Calz for getting away with Song of the South)
'50s: That one about the detective who's afraid of heights
'60s: Au hasard Balthazar
'70s: McCabe and Mrs Miller
'80s: Blue Velvet
'90s: Princess Mononoke
'00s: Time Out

Apart from The Endurance, Blue Velvet is the weakest of my choices by a mile or two.

You mean Monk?

http://www.amarillonet.com/images/headlines/102602/monkLR.jpg

Lots of "canon" picks, yeah, but they were honest choices.

But Legally Blonde ueber alles.

'30s: King Kong.
'40s: Citizen Kane (although I'm lately tempted to say The Third Man instead).
'50s: Touch of Evil (because I just saw it again... and reviewed it on my blog, if anyone's interested).
'60s: To Kill a Mockingbird.
'70s: hard hard hard... so I'll pick The French Connection just because it sprang to mind.
'80s: hard again... I'll go for The Shining, for failing so impressively.
'90s: Shawshank Redemption.
'00s: From Hell. Today. Tomorrow: something else. Just a pathetic excuse to get Johnny Depp on the list, really.

MOR, I know, but I came by my choices honestly.

10's- daydreams (bauer)
20's- passion of joan of arc (dreyer)
30's- rules of the game (renoir)
40's- casablanca (curtiz)
50's- hiroshima mon amour (resnais)
60's- my life to live (godard)
70's- nashville (altman)
80's- blue velvet (lynch)
90's- taste of cherry (kiastorami) sp?
00's- all the real girls (gordon green)

1890's-Sortie des usines Lumière OR Electrocuting an Elephant(Lumiere)
1900's-Le Voyage dans la Lune (Melies)
10's-Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene)
20's-Un Chien Andalou (Bunuel & Dali)
30's-Blood of a Poet (Cocteau)
40's-Meshes of the Afternoon (Deren)
50's-Cat's Cradle (Brakhage)
60's-Weekend (Godard) [god, there are so many great '60's films...]
70's-Eraserhead (Lynch)
80's-Down By Law (Jarmusch)
90's-Lost Book Found (Cohen)
00's-????? Irreversible is the only film that sticks out in my head.

I almost feel guilty not including one of my favorite movies of all time, "milo and otis" (i'm not kidding--yes, i do have a soft spot, and curious cats & pug-nosed pups are it!)

Maya Deren as your favorite film of the 40's? I am truly impressed. Your level of commitment to the avant-garde is commendable.

I would love to contribute to this thread, but there's no way I could choose just one per decade.

also, are you being sarcastic about my maya deren pic? i couldn't tell. "meshes..." may seem somewhat dated now, but deren was truly the mother of experimental cinema, and the popularity of that film made possible the wonderful avant-garde film community that's still thriving to this day.

(i have broader questions about avant garde and narrative but i will save those)

It'll be a totally different list this time tomorrow, though...

in regards to the brakhage DVD, i'd just watch it start to finish. i'm pretty sure it's chronological (or close to it) and it carries you through all of brakhages changes as a filmmaker--beat poet experimental documentary, jungian romantic, home-movie as art, all the up to his final films where he dismissed the camera and representational forms all together & just painted and scratched on the film.

brakhage is not easy in any regards, and you have to go into it (especially the two hours of "dog star man" [the "long version", not included on the dvd, is over four hours!]) with a completely fresh mind. read fred camper's liner notes on some good tips for watch brakhage--alone, dark room, no distractions, close to the set. it's some amazing stuff, man. you're in for a real treat--be ready to change the way you see both the medium of film and the world around you.

whatever you do, don't watch "dog star man" first. i know it's his "masterpiece" and all, but it's really not one of my favorities, and it was the first brakhage film i ever saw. i hated it so much i refused to watch anything else by him for several years. glad i gave it a second chance.

i'd like to start a thread on experimental/avant-garde film, but i wouldn't know where to start. any specific questions? either e-mail me off-line or start the thread yourself & I'll try to answer any questions i can.

somewhat off-topic but not--i just received my order of 16mm clear leader & i'm going to start a new paint film tonight! messy, messy fun.... :)

As for the dog & cat -- the Japanese version is called The Adventures of Chatran and really is quite charming.

here's an idea for a new thread--favorite sites to buy hard to find movies...