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Post by london777 on Oct 30, 2018 15:09:25 GMT
BBC Culture polled 209 critics in 43 countries to find the best in world cinema – here’s the top 100. From time to time US posters here ask for recommendations of non-English dialog films. I do not think you will find a better suggestion list than this, as it is compiled from so many different sources and cultural backgrounds. Probably best to ignore the competitive aspect and just savor the huge variety of titles on offer. There are many I have never heard of, and I will endeavor to hunt them down. In most cases I will not succeed, but if the lists manage to introduce me to a dozen new favorites it will be worthwhile. Do not just peruse the final 100 titles. The article lists the Top Ten films of each of the 209 critics, and most of them do not make it onto the final 100. There are a few blips. The Georgian critic names three Georgian movies as the three best (non-English language) films ever made from any country or epoch, whereas I doubt any of us have even heard of them, let alone viewed them. (I await a rebuttal from manfromplanetx here  ). But generally there is little home bias. Latin American critics may choose preponderantly East Asian movies, while some Japanese critics prefer European, and especially Italian neo-realist, films to their own masterpieces. Chinese critics choose a lot more Chinese movies than anyone else. This could be nationalist bias, or it could be that these movies really are that good, and we have not become sufficiently familiar with them yet. But given that there is scope to name a total of 2,090 titles the eccentricities and prejudices do not seriously impair the selection. Presumably a lot of the titles are unavailable with English sub-titles or (as a last resort) dubbing, which is a shame, but perhaps their very mention here will help to get a few more released with sub-titles.
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Post by koskiewicz on Oct 30, 2018 15:22:03 GMT
Some of my favorites include:
Alexander Nevsky
Aquirre: The Wrath of God
Tae Guk GI
Nosferatu (the Herzog version)
The Incubus (Esperanto)
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Post by Captain Spencer on Oct 30, 2018 16:17:18 GMT
I was pleased to see that M made the list. But I was disappointed that The Tin Drum was left out.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2018 17:12:35 GMT
Great list, london777, thanks for sharing
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Post by Aj_June on Oct 30, 2018 17:29:26 GMT
Thanks, London. There are many gems among those 100 movies. I will not make any complains about the order as different people have different POV and no matter how you order them some will always complain. Though I would like to make an observation that even among experts/critics there is some degree of bias based on popular opinion. For example, Ozu and Mizoguchi are in no way any less talented than Kurosawa. But you don't see Mizoguchi's films in top 50 and Kurosawa's film Seven Samurai is ahead of Ozu's top ranked. Now I am not saying that Kurosawa's movies are in anyway inferior to those of the other two giants of J cinema but they are not significantly greater either. I guess more exposure to them worldwide makes them take the pole position.
That said I will check out the top 10 of at least some of those critics to find more and more gems that are unknown to me.  |
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Post by petrolino on Oct 30, 2018 18:23:39 GMT
Thanks london. Fascinating piece.
"And the winning film, Seven Samurai, by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, was loved by critics everywhere – everywhere, that is, except for Japan. The six Japanese critics who voted didn’t go for a single Kurosawa film between them."
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Post by Aj_June on Oct 30, 2018 18:29:05 GMT
Thanks london. Fascinating piece.
"And the winning film, Seven Samurai, by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, was loved by critics everywhere – everywhere, that is, except for Japan. The six Japanese critics who voted didn’t go for a single Kurosawa film between them."
There is not a single Kobayashi movie in the top 100 list. I mean we have Kwaidan, Harakiri, The Human condition trilogy and those didn't find a mention. Just about shows how strong Japanese cinema is when even great movies of the standard of Kwaidan and Harakiri do not find a place.
I once said that after a bit of research I had formed an opinion that the japanese themselves prefer Ozu and Mizoguchi to Kurosawa. Your quote in the previous post bolsters my belief.
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Post by Aj_June on Oct 30, 2018 19:57:34 GMT
Salome Kikaleishvili – Film critic and lecturer (Georgia) 1. Didi Mtsvane Veli (Merab Kokochashvili, 1967) 2. Falling Leaves (Otar Iosseliani, 1966) 3. Salt for Svanetia (Mikheil Kalatozishvili, 1930) 4. The Ballad of Narayama (Shôhei Imamura, 1983) 5. The Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957) 6. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959) 7. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950) 8. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Parajanov, 1964) 9. Mr Long (Sabu, 2017) 10. Aparajito (Satyajit Ray, 1956)
London I have not seen his 3 Georgian movies and no.9 and no.10. But his 4-8 are absolutely awesome! Based on that I wouldn't mind trying out his Georgian movies but I doubt I will find them in the near future.
Edit: Oh wait! i found the first one I searched on youtube. Lol. With Eng subs.
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Post by OldAussie on Oct 30, 2018 20:55:03 GMT
I've seen 12 of the top 20, but not a lot after that. I need to broaden my horizons.
Thanks for this list Mr London.
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Post by london777 on Oct 30, 2018 21:01:12 GMT
I was pleased to see that M made the list. But I was disappointed that The Tin Drum was left out. was at least one critic's top film. The Tin Drum appears in at least one critic's top ten. |
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Post by london777 on Oct 30, 2018 21:13:55 GMT
Edit: Oh wait! i found the first one I searched on youtube. Lol. With Eng subs.
Thanks for pointing that out. It will encourage me to hunt for others on YouTube. |
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Post by delon on Oct 30, 2018 21:19:41 GMT
Solid list, even though I don't agree with the top pick. I'm suprised that Le Samourai and Army of Shadows didn't make the list.
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Post by london777 on Oct 30, 2018 21:22:46 GMT
There is not a single Kobayashi movie in the top 100 list. I mean we have Kwaidan, Harakiri, The Human condition trilogy and those didn't find a mention. Just about shows how strong Japanese cinema is when even great movies of the standard of Kwaidan and Harakiri do not find a place.
As I said, I would not get too hung up on the Top 100 listing, and even less on the particular placings within that listing. I am waiting for a local "handyman" to come in and wreck my kitchen. As soon as he departs I will scan down the 209 individual Top Tens and see how many times Kobayashi is nominated. I will see if I can cut-and-paste all of the individual lists into a spreadsheet then sort them into title, date, and nation order, then post the unified list here. I have all the time in the world for such nerdy projects but my dodgy eyes are the limiting factor so I may need to do it in installments. |
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Post by Aj_June on Oct 30, 2018 21:28:43 GMT
As I said, I would not get too hung up on the Top 100 listing, and even less on the particular placings within that listing. I am waiting for a local "handyman" to come in and wreck my kitchen. As soon as he departs I will scan down the 209 individual Top Tens and see how many times Kobayashi is nominated. I will see if I can cut-and-paste all of the individual lists into a spreadsheet then sort them into title, date, and nation order, then post the unified list here. I have all the time in the world for such nerdy projects but my dodgy eyes are the limiting factor so I may need to do it in installments. That's an excellent idea. Please take your time and do it as you please. Remember I am always willing for any conversation on foreign movies though I have not seen many. Japanese movies fascinate me a lot in particular but I love European movies a lot too. |
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Post by london777 on Oct 30, 2018 21:34:31 GMT
Solid list, even though I don't agree with the top pick. I'm surprised that Le Samourai and Army of Shadows didn't make the list. I noticed that at least two critics included Army of Shadows, and remember, they were not picking it as "Top 100 choice" but as a "Top Ten" choice, so high praise indeed. Almost certainly, no-one is going to agree with the top pick. The number of possible Top 100s far exceeds the total world population. I am no mathematician but that may well be true even if we limited to those movies which at least someone nominated and disregard the thousands of good movies which no-one nominated. Once I have posted my consolidated list of all the movies nominated, I will invite posters to suggest films which none of the critics chose but which they would include in their Top Tens. |
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Post by Aj_June on Oct 31, 2018 4:20:28 GMT
Fox in the SnowI recall that you mentioned having enjoyed a movie of Mizoguchi that I had not seen. Was it The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939)? I just found out that 2 Japanese critics have rated it as the greatest movie of all-time! While some others have rated it among top 10 films ever. That's quite remarkable given the fact that the same Japanese critics have not mentioned any movie from Kurosawa.
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Post by rudeboy on Oct 31, 2018 5:00:04 GMT
To my great surprise, I have seen 92 of these, far more than I expected. Which above all suggests that it is a rather predictable list, although it is certainly full of respectable choices. From a quick glance through the only two which I would forcefully argue against are Touki Bouki and Amelie, both of which I detested with passion.
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Post by Aj_June on Oct 31, 2018 5:22:51 GMT
To my great surprise, I have seen 92 of these, far more than I expected. Which above all suggests that it is a rather predictable list, although it is certainly full of respectable choices. From a quick glance through the only two which I would forcefully argue against are Touki Bouki and Amelie, both of which I detested with passion. True that the list is a bit predictable. But I like London's idea of going through each top 209 critics individual list and still recommend movies that we believe can add value. May be we should try to come up with 500 top foreign movies. Even after searching each 209 critics top 10 I still found room for many good movies that have not been mentioned by any of those critics. Off the top of my head I can name good movies like Ballad of a Soldier (1959) from Soviet Union and Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) from Poland that surprisingly didn't find an entry among 209 critics individual lists. Of course there are many more. But it will be good to add up to the list. |
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Post by Fox in the Snow on Oct 31, 2018 13:07:24 GMT
Fox in the SnowI recall that you mentioned having enjoyed a movie of Mizoguchi that I had not seen. Was it The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939)? I just found out that 2 Japanese critics have rated it as the greatest movie of all-time! While some others have rated it among top 10 films ever. That's quite remarkable given the fact that the same Japanese critics have not mentioned any movie from Kurosawa. I've seen The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum relatively recently and did quite enjoy it, so it may have been the one I mentioned. It is generally considered one of his best, certainly among his work pre 1950. |
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Post by Fox in the Snow on Oct 31, 2018 13:12:20 GMT
Some great films there. Nice to see the two giants of the relatively recent Taiwanese New Wave, Hou Hsiao-Hsien (A City of Sadness at 18) and Edward Yang (Yi-Yi at 25 and A Brighter Summer Day at 38) place so high.
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). But generally there is little home bias. Latin American critics may choose preponderantly East Asian movies, while some Japanese critics prefer European, and especially Italian neo-realist, films to their own masterpieces. Chinese critics choose a lot more Chinese movies than anyone else. This could be nationalist bias, or it could be that these movies really are that good, and we have not become sufficiently familiar with them yet.
