by Sam Juliano
Happy Thanksgiving to all our good friends and readers who will be celebrating the holiday on Thursday of this week! Our own family will be attending our annual massively-attended event at the Butler, New Jersey home of my wife’s sister and family!
Irish Jesus in Fairview is still in the hands of my excellent first-stage editor, Rob Bignell. I have been dabbling with ideas for the third novel, and hope to proceed over the holidays.
Lucille, Sammy IV, Jeremy and I attended a new release on Saturday night in Manhattan, and on Sunday I attended a second film in Manhattan by my lonesome.
Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical THE FABELMANS is a life-affirming work that is the furthest thing from self-indulgence and shameless self-promotion, in fact the story of a legendary filmmaker’s childhood years, growing up as part of a dysfunctional family dynamic allows for all kinds of emotional and humorous vignettes, one wrought with heartbreak, exhilaration and music-infused documentation of a time and an era, that according to the director is all too fleeting. The kaleidoscopic film is an audience charmer that is celebratory in tone, and a showcase of cinematic craftsmanship from the acting, script, cinematography, art direction and score. Spielberg rarely has gotten this personal, and as filmgoers we were treated to a two-and-a-half hour film that flew by as quickly as the coming-of-age story it chronicled. THE FABELMANS is truly one of the greatest films of Spielberg’s career. 5 of 5.
Few of us who have come to regard Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski as a major talent from decades past could have predicted that he would create one of this very best films in his mid-80s. Robert Bresson’s supreme masterpiece “Au Hasard Balthazar” from 1966 was the inspiration, but unlike Bresson’s film -which focuses on the people around the film’s animal metaphor – his new surrealist and poetic EO, an economical, minimalist work is an intimate cinematic probe of a donkey who moves on from one threat to another, after his first appearance in a circus. The story, much like the one told in Bresson’s film, isn’t tightly plotted (an understatement) and through some captivating expressionistic cinematography by Micha Dymek, the episodic work (again like Bresson’s film) establishes and develops a deep emotional bond between audience and central character, even though six donkeys (Hola, Tako, Marietta, Ettore, Rocco and Mela take turns playing the animal). I’d be hard pressed to name a film released in 2022 that is as wrenchingly moving as this Polish masterwork. 5 of 5.
The long-awaited results of the Greatest Films of All-Time polling, brilliantly tabulated by Bill Kamberger, follows:
1. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) – 3,327.5
2. Tokyo Story (Yasujro Ozu, 1953) – 2,852
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) – 2,692.5
4. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F. W. Murnau, 1927) – 2,570.5
5. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931) – 2,527
6. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) – 2,292.5
7. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) – 2,287.5
8. The Godfather, Part I (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) – 2,256*
9. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966) – 2,224
10. Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952) – 2,145.5
11. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) – 2,117.5
12. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) – 2,103
13. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) – 1,933
14. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959) – 1,906
15. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939) – 1,897.5
16. Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948) – 1,852
17. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, et al., 1939) – 1,781.5
18. Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954) – 1,745
19. M (Fritz Lang, 1931) – 1,730
20. The Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray, 1955 – 1959) – 1,696**
21. Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982) – 1,681
22. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) – 1,662
23. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955) – 1,640.5
24. 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963) – 1,587.5
26. Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957) – 1,544
27. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950) – 1,516
28. The Godfather, Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) – 1,495.5***
29. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) – 1,495.5
30. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) – 1,485.5
31. The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926) – 1,466.5
32. Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972) – 1,453.5
33. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) – 1,446
34. Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949) – 1,445.5
35. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001) – 1,444.5
36. A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956) – 1,431.5
37. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) – 1,424.5
38. Children of Paradise (Marcel Carné, 1945) – 1,410.5
39. Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966) – 1,387
40. Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938) – 1,383
41. Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990) – 1,360
42. Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944) – 1,300
43. The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971) – 1,281
44. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) – 1,270
45. L’Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934) – 1,266.5
46. Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933) – 1,252
47. Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946) – 1,249.5
48. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) – 1,246
49. Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953) – 1,230
50. Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945) – 1,208
51. Umberto D (Vittorio De Sica, 1952) – 1,186.5
52. Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952) – 1,138.5
53. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1943) – 1,108.5
54. Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951) – 1,105
55. Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936) – 1,105
56. The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) – 1,087
57. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) – 1,086.5
58. The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957) – 1,076.5
59. The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) – 1,074
60. West Side Story (Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins, 1961) – 1,061.5
61. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)– 1,053
62. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977) – 1,040
63. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941) – 1,024
64. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946) – 1,000
65. Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924) – 994.5
66. Black Narcissus (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947) – 988
67. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939) – 980
68. Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937) – 969.5
69. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968) – 962
70. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) – 960
71. The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940) – 951
72. King Kong (Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack) – 945
73. L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960) – 940
74. I Know Where I’m Going! (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1945) – 938.5
75. Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1949) – 937.5
76. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) – 907
77. Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961) – 906
78. Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967) – 895.5
79. The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925) – 894.5
80. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956) – 893
81. Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993) – 890
82. Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959) – 874.5
83. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) – 874
84. Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957) – 870.5
85. The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965) – 864
86. Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924) – 862
87. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) – 857
88. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947) – 857
89. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975) – 853.5
90. The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960) – 847
91. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000) – 829
92. The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940) – 825.5
93. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) – 825
94. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) – 824
95. The Red Shoes (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1948) – 814
96. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) – 813
97. A Matter of Life and Death, aka Stairway to Heaven (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946) – 805.5
98. The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963) – 799
99. To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962) – 794.5
100. Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, et al., 1939) – 793.5
101. Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) – 791.5
102. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971) – 783.5
103. A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964) – 777.5
104. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964) – 768.5
105. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966) – 765.5
106. Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927) – 761.5
107. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) – 752.5
108. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) – 749
109. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) – 748.5
110. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) – 743.5
111. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) – 739
112. Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985) – 728.5
113. Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975) – 723
114. Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957) – 716
115. Sullivan’s Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941) – 711
116. The Earrings of Madame de… (Max Ophüls , 1953) – 701.5
117. Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959) – 700
118. The Producers (Mel Brooks, 1967) – 688
119. Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979) – 687
120. Los Olvidados (Luis Buñuel, 1950) – 682
121. Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) – 673
122. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) – 665.5
123. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King (Peter Jackson, 2001 – 2003) – 654.5
124. Kes (Ken Loach, 1969) – 643
125. Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda, 1958) – 640.5
126. Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) – 629.5
127. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) – 625.5
128. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Buñuel, 1972) – 607.5
129. Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955) – 605
130. Three Color Trilogy: Blue, White, and Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993 – 1994) – 593.5
131. Before Trilogy: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, 1995 – 2013) – 591.5
132. Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) – 590.5
133. I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943) – 586
134. Ivan the Terrible, Parts I & II (Sergei Eisenstein, 1944 & 1958)– 581.5
135. Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932) – 581
136. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948) – 578
137. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) – 576.5
138. To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942) – 572.5
139. Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) – 558.5
140. A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974) – 556.5
141. All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) – 552.5
142. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977) – 542
143. Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1965) – 532.5
144. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969) – 531
145. Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962) – 529
146. E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982) – 521.5
147. Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945) 521
148. Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974) – 517.5
149. Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943) – 515.5
150. My Life to Live (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962) – 514
151. Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961) – 508.5
152. Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935) – 508
153. Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980) – 507
154. Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959) – 505
155. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950) – 502.5
156. All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930) – 500
157. Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) – 499.5
158. The Last Laugh (F. W. Murnau, 1924) – 495
159. The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973) – 494
160. The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937) – 492
161. Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975) – 492
162. Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972) – 486
163. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) – 485
164. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988) – 482.5
165. The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962) – 480.5
166. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966) – 477
167. I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini, 1953) – 477
168. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946) – 475.5
169. Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks, 1974) – 474.5
170. Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) – 473
171. Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922) – 469.5
172. Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938) – 462.5
173. The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973) – 462
174. Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971) – 461
175. American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973) – 459.5
176. Fargo (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1996) – 459.5
177. The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991) – 457.5
178. Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969) – 456
179. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) – 454
180. Great Expectations (David Lean, 1946) – 451.5
181. Pandora’s Box (G. W. Pabst, 1929) – 450.5
182. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman, 1975) – 450
183. The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) – 448.5
184. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977) – 448
185. The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942) – 448
186. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011) – 446
187. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946) – 443
188. Miller’s Crossing (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1990) – 443
189. The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962) – 439.5
190. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987) – 430.5
191. Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964) – 429
192. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992) – 422
193. The Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957) – 420.5
194. Le Cercle Rouge (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970) – 419.5
195. High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963) – 418.5
196. My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946) – 418
197. Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) – 416.5
198. The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz & William Keighley, 1938) – 411
199. Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989) – 409.5
200. TIE Ride the High Country (Sam Peckinpah, 1962) – 407.5
200. TIE Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980) – 407
* Votes for Part I: 1,595 (individually) + 661 (half of the score for dual votes)
** Votes for The Apu Trilogy: 978; Votes for Pather Panchali: 667.5; Votes for The World of Apu: 50.5
*** Votes for Part II: 834.5 (individually) + 661 (half of the score for dual votes)
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Writers/Founders
Wonders in the Dark 
What a wonderful list for a cinephile-wannabe to have in hand. Thanks, Sam, to you and your contributors for developing this valuable list, and to Bill for what must have been hours of work compiling it. While I’ve seen most of the American films, I’ll look forward to seeking out all the international films on the list. Happy Thanksgiving to my big-city namesake and his family!
Thank you so much my cherished Texas namesake!! I’m so thrilled that you will find the list of worthy reference value, and I do give a ton of credit to tabular Bill Kamberger, who worked miracles in a such a short time window.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family my dearly esteemed doppelganger!
Interesting to chart the rise and fall and rise again of Chaplin’s critical reputation over the decades. In the 1952 S&S poll “City Lights” and “The Gold Rush” tied for second place behind #1 “Bicycle Thieves,” which was only four years old. In 1962 these same two Chaplin comedies tied again at a lofty #14. However, by the militantly unsentimental 2010s “City Lights” barely makes the top 50 and “The Gold Rush” is nowhere to be found. (“Modern Times” ranks a modest #63.)
And now happy news: “City Lights,” generally considered Chaplin’s greatest film, has regained its Olympian stature, at least in the Wonders poll where it sits in fifth place. Huzzahs.
Sadly, “The Magnificent Ambersons” (along with Booth Tarkington’s once sterling renown) has dropped like a meteorite since 1982, when Welles’s second masterpiece tied with “L’Avventura and “Vertigo” at #7 in the S&S poll. Hopefully, the sublime “Ambersons” can make a comeback (oops sorry, “return”) when the results of the new S&S polI are announced next month. I won’t hold my breath.
Lastly, Bergman’s masterpiece seems invincible. Perhaps “Persona” and its experimental pyrotechnics will crack the BFI’s top ten once more. In 1972 it tied at #5 with “L’Avventura.” (Antonioni again!)
My God, the pretty and tragic Barry Brown in “Bad Company” and “Daisy Miller.”
Mark, I smiled as I read your celebratory words for CITY LIGHTS, which I for one have ALWAYS considered one of the greatest films ever made, and a personal favorite since the very first time I laid eyes upon it. I am also a huge fan of PERSONA, which you note late in your comment with delightful resignation. Like you I await the results of the S & S polling with baited breath. I have made some predictions online and on FB as to how it might come down, but for most there seems to be a prevailing opinion that there will be some significant placement changes. I’d be hard-pressed to change my thinking on what will end up #1 on both polls, so it appears (to me) that VERTIGO will again hold the top spot on the critics’ poll and TOKYO STORY the top spot on the filmmaker’s poll. But yes, AMBERSONS has sadly fell out of favor in recent years, and I have no idea why.
I commend the effort Bill Kamberger put into assigning the films to their proper slot, but I cannot commend the voters for their choices, I’m afraid. One woman, Chantal Akerman, made the list at position 160, and JEANNE DIELMANN is arguably not even her best film. Spike Lee is the token Black director; at least he cracked the top 100. Entire continents snubbed.
What I have tried to do as a film critic was share the depth and breadth of filmmaking, but it appears that many are not willing to step out of their comfort zone, even with the country rankings Sam most helpfully collected here at Wonders in the Dark, a worthy undertaking if ever there was one.
Perhaps I should have participated in the pool to offer some balance to this conservative exercise, but I’d probably just be more upset than I am not.
Do better, film fans!
Marilyn, in behalf of Bill Kamberger, thank you so much for the kind words on his stellar tabulation efforts. As to the actual voting, I totally get where you are coming from, and can make a connection with the actual Sight & Sound voting which previously has been criticized by some as a continuing celebration of the usual suspects. While some of the films in this designation are in my view irrefutable mega-masterpieces – like Tokyo Story, Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Sunrise, 2001, The Godfather, Joan of Arc and others – that have earned continued veneration, there should -as you contend – always be room and enthusiasm for many films that are regularly shut out from this polling. While I don’t quite go as far as one FB regular who spends the lion’s share of his time attacking Ozu, Bergman, Bresson, Tarkovsky and Godard as “crypto fascists” while calling each one “evil” (I kid you not)–to be sure I adore all of these with the sole exception of Godard, the underlying point you make is to leave the box. I get that totally, and I await to see where S & S goes. Some masterpieces are simply transcendent and deserve regular representation, but the cost is always that other great films are sadly under-represented as you note. I don’t really know how and when this genuine problem can be solved. Your own input has been and always be cherished my friend. (To be fair of course, this was a Top 200, and Bill did announce that over 3,500 films received support. Some of the outlier titles from Africa, South America and southeast Asia were named on several ballots, but the support was insufficient to overcome the massive allegiance for the canonical films. Had this project revealed the Top 500, many of such films would have placed, but I decided I would be pushing things and expect too much of Bill to complete such a massive tabulation).
Sam, thank you so much for your measured and understanding response to my rant. I regretted being so harsh and writing something in the heat of the moment. However, I do stand by my criticism (I’m a film critic, after all!). In years past, in the heyday of Ferdy on Films, I realized many people did not have access to many of the films I was privileged to see as a resident of a major U.S. city. I wrote about interesting new films from far-flung places and exciting, new directors in hopes that if and when these became available more widely, people would remember my reviews or read them via the IMDb links I provided. It is now 2022, and free and reasonably priced streaming and secondary markets for lower-cost DVDs make accessing these films much more feasible. Your country countdowns reminded your readers of the excellence of films from all parts of the globe. And, dare I say, diversity has become a byword in this country. It was just so disappointing to see voters show so little effort in mixing up their choices to include not only the recognized masterpieces we all know and love, but also to find room for the wide range of creators from cinema’s earliest days to the present.
Marilyn, thanks again my friend! Well, I do think it is safe to say that our individual international pollings -all of which your participated in with a fabulous line-up of underappreciated gems- were a better acknowlegement of eclectic and too-often-ignored films, most of which could be compared with the canonical selections. Once we got to this so-called Mother of All Pollings, such films suffered under-appreciation to put it mildly.