If I had to send my very own list for the Sight and Sound poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, this is the list I'd make! This week at least.
These 10 films represent the best that movies can be, they are the audiovisual language's greatest achievement. Perfect screenplays with perfect characters, plots and dialogue (I'm into dialogue) and perfect direction with perfect framing, staging and camerawork (I'm into depth).
A film can't make the list without a perfect combination of narrative and style and every film here (including the honorable mentions in the end) does it sublimely. And that combination is not casual, since these are difficult screenplays with difficult directing to match.
And all these films contain some element of risk. No great film can be made without risk. A film might risk being stagy, pretentious, long, confusing, silly or many other failures, but, with the right visuals, the right narrative and the right cast, that risk pays off and the result is a masterpiece.
In chronological order.
00:00 The 10 Greatest Films of All Time
00:57 1
02:51 2
05:17 3
07:29 4
09:31 5
13:20 6
15:51 7
18:48 8
21:08 9
23:08 10
25:19 Honorable Mentions
Danse Macabre by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Scheming Weasel (faster version) by Kevin MacLeod http://incompetech.com
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