Rank: 50
Release Year: 1969
Genre: Western
Plot
Summary: As the Wild West disappears around them, a gang of aging
outlaws looks to make one last big score.
What
Makes It Special: Director Sam Peckinpah made a statement about violence
in the world (possibly and probably directed at the conflict in Vietnam) with
The Wild Bunch, especially in its final scene (a brutal shootout). With the
death of the Production Code in 1967, films were suddenly much more graphic
(films like Bonnie
and Clyde and Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs), as
a new generation of filmmakers began to completely transform cinema
artistically and content wise. The Wild Bunch is also a testament to the death
of the classic Western. The world was just no longer a place for clear cut
heroes and villains.
Rank: 49
Release Year: 1931
Genre: Mystery
Plot
Summary: There is a child-murderer on the loose in Berlin, and the
police cannot seem to catch him. As fear and anxiety grip the city, criminals
too join the manhunt (while the man they are looking for, Hans Beckert, feels
the rope ever tighter around his neck).
What
Makes It Special: M is a beautifully shot and wonderfully designed film,
creating a dark and suspenseful moody atmosphere. Peter Lorre gives the
performance of his career as Hans Beckert, a child-murdering psychopath.
Director Fritz Lang masterfully captures the emotional depth of his characters,
especially Beckert – in a way creating a protagonist out of a villain. Lang
also sets up an absolutely gripping and thrilling third act. Arriving in
cinemas in 1931, M became the benchmark by which all thrillers and mystery films
would be judged – even today.
Rank: 48
Release Year: 1960
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Plot
Summary: C.C. Baxter wants to get ahead at his company. He comes up with
an idea of how to get in good with the executives. He will let them use his
apartment for trysts. It is all going along splendidly until Baxter falls for
one of the girls an executive brings to his apartment.
What
Makes It Special: With The Apartment, auteur Billy Wilder made one of
the quintessential romantic comedies, and possibly the best of the genre, a
romantic comedy that would influence the genre for decades to come (something
that continues today). The film works so well because its characters are
developed very well and most importantly it is very funny. The romantic comedy
developed out of the screwball comedy (taking out most of the physical comedy,
but not all of it, and digging deeper into the characters their relationships).Wilder,
one of Hollywood’s greatest writers, perfected the storytelling style for the
genre with this film.
Rank: 47
Release Year: 1937
Genre: War Drama
Plot
Summary: During WWI, two imprisoned French soldiers try to escape from
their German POW camp several times, until they are sent to an impenetrable
fortress, thought to be impossible to escape from.
What
Makes It Special: La Grande Illusion is an antiwar masterpiece from
French auteur Jean Renoir. Set during The Great War, a war that was supposed to
end all wars, and yet Renoir made this film just as the world was on the brink
of WWII with Europe and Asia in chaos. But, La Grande Illusion goes deeper. Something
that is always very powerful about combat is that from afar opposing forces appear
as enemies, but close up, in different circumstances, these men and women in
conflict find that really they are not so much different – that they all want,
dream, and fear the same things, which then begs the question of why are they
fighting each other, killing each other. Renoir touches on this beautifully in
his film.
Rank: 46
Release Year: 1958
Genre: Mystery
Plot
Summary: After an American building contractor is killed (via car bomb)
in a small US-Mexican border town, Mexican Narcotics officer Ramon “Mike”
Vargas has to interrupt his honeymoon to investigate, as the bomb was planted
on the Mexican side of the border. American Police Captain Hank Quinlan tries
to take charge of the investigation and already has a suspect (a Mexican);
however, Vargas catches Quinlan planting evidence on his suspect. Vargas now
realizes that this crime goes much deeper and that he is alone in town run by
corruption. He begins to go after Quinlan, but this leaves his new American
wife Susie vulnerable as a target.
What
Makes It Special: The long-take tracking shot that opens A Touch of Evil
is alone enough to make this a cinema classic, as is Orson Welles’s villainous
Captain Quinlan. Welles’s neo-noir mystery thriller is utterly gripping. The
opening shot grabs the viewer and the cat-and-mouse game that follows keeps
them hooked throughout. Welles displays a complex storytelling that is often
not found in Hollywood films. The black & white cinematography is also top
notch. The original theatrical release was edited from Welles’s true vision;
however, his cut was released on DVD in 1998.
