The third list to be posted, in a series of six. –J.R.
Chicago Reader, 1990 (ranked):
Sweetie (Jane Campion)
City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
To Sleep With Anger (Charles Burnett)
White Hunter, Black Heart (Clint Eastwood)
The Icicle Thief (Maurizio Nichetti)
Pump Up the Volume (Allan Moyle)
The Plot Against Harry (Michael Roemer)
Texasville (Peter Bogdanovich)
Mr. Hoover and I (Emile De Antonio)
tied: The Freshman (Andrew Bergman), Miami Blues (George Armitage)
Chicago Reader, 1991:
L’Atalante (restoration)(Jean Vigo)
An Angel at My Table (Jane Campion)
White Dog (Samuel Fuller)
Ju Dou (Zhang Yimou)
My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant)
Chameleon Street (Wendell B. Harris, Jr.)
Europa Europa (Agnieszka Holland)
Camp Thiaroye (Ousmane Sembene)
Hangin’ With the Homeboys (Joseph P. Vasquez)
For the Boys (Mark Rydell)
Chicago Reader, 1992:
A Tale of the Wind (Joris Ivens)
Actress (Stanley Kwan)
Rhapsody in August (Akira Kurosawa)
Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami) + Life and Nothing More (Abbas Kiarostami)
The Famine Within (Katherine Gilday)
Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (Mark Rappaport)
Naked Lunch (David Cronenberg)
Close My Eyes (Stephen Poliakoff)
La Belle Noiseuse (Jacques Rivette)
Chicago Reader, 1993:
Nouvelle Vague (Jean-Luc Godard)
The Puppet Master (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Night and Day (Chantal Akerman) + From the East (Chantal Akerman)
Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg)
Bitter Moon (Roman Polanski)
The Story of Qiu Ju (Zhang Yimou)
The Passing (Bill Viola) +
Histoire(s)du Cinéma (Jean-Luc Godard)
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (Mark Achbar/Peter Wintonick) + It’s All True: Based on an Unfinished Film by Orson Welles (R. Read more
A list of lists, the second in a series of six. –J.R.
Chicago Reader, Best Films of the 1980s (chronological):
Out of the Blue (1980, Dennis Hopper)
Sans soleil (1981, Chris Marker)
Blade Runner (1981, Ridley Scott)
Passion (1982, Jean-Luc Godard)
The King of Comedy (1983, Martin Scorsese)
Love Streams (1984, John Cassavetes)
Manuel on the Island of Wonders (1984, Raul Ruiz)
Shoah (1985, Claude Lanzmann)
The Horse Thief (1985, Tian Zhuangzhuang)
Mix-Up (1985, Francoise Romand)
Mélo (1986, Alain Resnais)
Brightness (1987, Souleymane Cisse)
Housekeeping (1987, Bill Forsyth)
A Story of the Wind (1988, Joris Ivens/Marceline Loridan)
Distant Voices/Still Lives (1988, Terence Davies)
Film Comment, 1981 (alphabetical):
Amor de Perdição (Manoel de Oliveira)
Cutter’s Way (Ivan Passer)
Gal Young ‘Un (Victor Nunez)
Hardly Working (Jerry Lewis)
India Song (Marguerite Duras)
Mommie Dearest (Frank Perry)
Numéro Deux (Jean-Luc Godard)
Reds (Warren Beatty)
Shock Treatment (Jim Sharman)
Taxi Zum Klo (Frank Ripploh)
Chicago Reader, 1987 (ranked):
The Horse Thief (Tian Zhuangzhuang)
Mammame (Raúl Ruiz)
Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick)
Mélo (Alain Resnais)
The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Ishtar (Elaine May)
Landscape Suicide (James Benning)
Tough Guys Don’t Dance (Norman Mailer)
From the Pole to the Equator(Yervant Gianikian/Angela Ricci Lucchi)
Black Widow (Bob Rafelson)
Chicago Reader, 1988 (ranked):
Mix-Up (Françoise Romand)
Yeelen (Brightness) (Souleymane Cissé)
Housekeeping (Bill Forsyth)
Repentance (Tengiz Abuladze)
Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis)
King Lear (Jean-Luc Godard)
Talking to Strangers (Rob Tregenza)
Uncommon Senses: Plain Talk & Common Sense (Jon Jost)
Hairspray (John Waters)
Chicago Reader, 1989 (ranked):
Distant Voices/Still Lives (Terence Davies)
A Short Film About Love (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Terry Gilliam)
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee)
High Hopes (Mike Leigh)
Golub (Jerry Blumenthal/Gordon Quinn)
Rembrandt Laughing (Jon Jost)
sex, lies, and videotape (Steven Soderbergh)
Forevermore: Biography of Leach Lord (Eric Saks)
Say Anything… (Cameron Crowe)
[1/6/10] Read more
A list of lists, the first in a series of six, first posted on December 21, 2009. Some time ago, Eric Johnson kindly went to the trouble of compiling many of my old ten-best lists and placing them on his web site. I’ve pasted these in here with some corrections regarding sources and precise titles, and added a few others. (Beware of a few anomalies and oddities below, such as the films by Mizoguchi and Renoir that I’d happened to see those years in London. I’m sure I must have had some polemical slant in mind, but I’m no longer able to define this slant more than vaguely.)
In mid-June 2015, I’ve just discovered that Charley Varrick, #7 in my Village Voice list of 1973, was originally misspelled by me as Charlie Varrick. Having just reseen this very impressive masterpiece on a new German Blu-Ray, I can only add that it deserves a lot more recognition than I was able to give it at the time. — J.R.
The Village Voice, 1972 (ranked):
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Buñuel)
L’amour fou (Jacques Rivette)
The Central Region (Michael Snow)
Such Good Friends (Otto Preminger)
Phantom India (Louis Malle)
Umbracle (Pere Portabella)
Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertrolucci)
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (Jonas Mekas)
Fat City (John Huston)
Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock)
The Village Voice, 1973 (ranked):
Playtime (Jacques Tati)
A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa)
Who is Beta? Read more
