400. The 400 Blows
In January 1954, Francois Truffaut wrote a landmark essay on film criticism. Five years later, he put his theory into practice and cinema never been the same since.
Tag Archives: Jean-Luc Godard
396. L’Avventura
With this modernist masterpiece, Michelangelo Antonioni told a story that abandoned its initial plot. Booed at Cannes, it paved the way for a new cinematic form.
392. Un prophète
This French masterpiece avoids all the clichés of American prison films while at the same time bearing an uncanny similarity to a 1960s’ Japanese action picture.
390. Cléo from 5 to 7
In Agnes Varda’s classic, Corrine Marchand plays one woman; happy Cléo and anxious Florence, walking about Paris in real time awaiting her medical results.
389. The Insider
Whether it be ethically, legally, politically, geographically or even chemically, Michael Mann’s multi-Oscar nominated picture is about crossing the line.
376. The Passion of Joan of Arc
In Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent masterpiece, the story isn’t so much told through the Saint’s eyes as it is read on her face.
375. sex, lies, and videotape
With his Palme d’Or winning debut, Steven Soderbergh made a modern classic as well as a how-to manual for film students.
363. Arrival
No matter how cinematic, all films are nothing more than a form of writing that borrows from other forms of writing. Which is why Arrival comes in code.
362. Last Tango in Paris
There are several good reasons to watch Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial drama. Not all of them make for palatable viewing.
358. Memories of Murder
Bong Joon-Ho embraced every cliché of the serial killer genre to examine masculinity, institutional repression and national identity.
346. Au revoir les enfants
Most films about childhood are often nostalgic. Louis Malle’s masterful auto-biopic is about loss of an unfathomable kind.
330. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Werner Herzog’s hallucinatory telling of a Conquistador’s search for El Dorado etches a landscape of greed on the human face.
322. Yi Yi
As the title to Edward Yang’s masterpiece indicates, Yi Yi is a series of doubles; narrative, thematic, visual and aural, that deliver a subtle family portrait.
319. 2001: A Space Odyssey
For all its groundbreaking effects and narrative innovation, this owes a debt to a romantic fantasy and a Soviet propaganda film.
305. Blow Out
Rear Window, Vertigo, Blowup, Weekend, the Zapruder film and The Conversation are all to be seen and heard in Brian De Palma’s Blow Out.
303. Blowup
Originally titled A Girl, a Photographer and a Beautiful April Morning, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Palme d’Or winner is still as enigmatic fifty years on.
302. Festen
William Shakespeare, Sigmund Freud, Ingmar Bergman and John Cassavetes are just some of the disparate influences on view in Thomas Vinterberg’s masterpiece.
293. A Clockwork Orange
Kubrick’s controversial film remains relevant because of the Ludovico Technique’s conversion therapy: Pray Away the Gay.
288. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
With his Palme d’Or winning masterpiece, Jacques Demy wove more than a musical. He delivered a socially relevant story worthy of tragic opera.
281. Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver was written in ten days by first-time screenwriter, Paul Schrader as a means to exorcise his festering, masochistic, narcissistic anger.
280. Metropolis
The influence of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis extends far beyond sci-fi and can be seen in films are varied as Casablanca, An American in Paris and The Birds.
278. The Rules of the Game
Reviled and banned upon its release, then feared lost forever, Jean Renoir’s masterpiece stands today as a victory for liberalism.
276. Le Mépris
When it comes to making movies about making movies, many directors choose to venerate the medium. Not Jean-Luc Godard. He treats it with contempt.
274. Day for Night
Francois Truffaut created the auteur theory, and with Day for Night he delivered a tribute to the art form without which he felt his life could not make sense.
