Twenty-five favorites in 2011
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- DirectorMichael PowellEmeric PressburgerStarsDavid NivenKim HunterRobert CooteA British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court, hoping to prolong his fledgling romance with an American girl.
- DirectorPreston SturgesStarsJoel McCreaVeronica LakeRobert WarwickHollywood director John L. Sullivan sets out to experience life as a homeless person in order to gain relevant life experience for his next movie.
- DirectorAndrei TarkovskyStarsOleg YankovskiyErland JosephsonDomiziana GiordanoA Russian poet and his interpreter travel to Italy researching the life of an 18th-century composer, and instead meet a ruminative madman who tells the poet how the world may be saved.Most of Tarkovsky's films deal with characters who are exiled in one way or another. With this film Tarkovsky was himself exiled and so the theme is prominent. The sequence in which the main character walks across the pool holding a candle is one of the more remarkable films in film history.
- DirectorBuster KeatonStarsBuster KeatonKathryn McGuireJoe KeatonA film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meagre skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.
- DirectorDziga VertovStarsMikhail KaufmanElizaveta SvilovaA man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
- DirectorErmanno OlmiStarsSandro PanseriLoredana DettoCorrado AprileBursting with big dreams and plans, an Italian teen goes to Milan to work in a big impersonal corporate office, where he becomes disillusioned and drained of all his individualism.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsBibi AnderssonLiv UllmannMargaretha KrookA nurse is put in charge of a mute actress and finds that their personae are melding together.The violence of the burning monk says so much about the patients state of mind. She wants to yell but chooses silence.
- DirectorKrzysztof KieslowskiStarsIrène JacobWladyslaw KowalskiHalina GryglaszewskaTwo parallel stories about two identical women; one living in Poland, the other in France. They don't know each other, but their lives are nevertheless profoundly connected.
- DirectorRidley ScottStarsHarrison FordRutger HauerSean YoungA blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.Director's cut with no voice-over is terrific. The film has a quiet, autumnal feel where death is in the air.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsMireille DarcJean YanneJean-Pierre KalfonA surreal tale of a married couple going on a road trip to visit the wife's parents with the intention of killing them for the inheritance.
- DirectorRobert AltmanStarsElliott GouldNina van PallandtSterling HaydenPrivate eye Philip Marlowe helps friend Terry Lennox out of a jam and is implicated in his wife Sylvia's murder. He also is hired by Eileen Wade to locate her dipsomaniac husband Roger, who frequently disappears when he wants to dry out.
- DirectorMartin ScorseseStarsRobert De NiroHarvey KeitelDavid ProvalIn New York City's Little Italy, a devoutly Catholic mobster must reconcile his desire for power, his feelings for his epileptic lover, and his devotion to his troublesome friend.Still the freshest Scorsese film. It is rough around the edges just like the characters and the streets the film is about.
- DirectorMartin ScorseseStarsRobbie RobertsonMuddy WatersNeil YoungA film account and presentation of the final concert of The Band.
- DirectorMohsen MakhmalbafStarsMirhadi TayebiMohsen MakhmalbafAli BakhsiA semi-autobiographical account of Makmahlbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.A fiction film that takes documentary elements and turns it into fiction pretending to be documentary. The best of the self-reflexive Iranian films.
- DirectorMichelangelo AntonioniStarsMonica VittiAlain DelonFrancisco RabalA young woman meets a vital young man, but their love affair is doomed because of the man's materialistic nature.The final scene is where art house cinema gets its reputation.
- DirectorAbbas KiarostamiStarsBabek Ahmed PoorAhmed Ahmed PoorKhodabakhsh DefaeiEight-year-old Ahmed has mistakenly taken his friend Mohammad's notebook. He wants to return it, or else his friend will be expelled from school. The boy determinedly sets out to find Mohammad's home in the neighbouring village."Where is the Friend's Home" - A boy goes in search of his schoolmate to give him his homework. Simple Iranian film with political overtones.
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsToshirô MifuneMachiko KyôMasayuki MoriThe rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter.I would say the woodcutter's version is the most believable. But the key here is more about the way people will always tell their version of events from a subjective point of view. Yet, humanity can arise when it is needed.
- DirectorHoward HawksStarsCary GrantJean ArthurRita HayworthAt a remote South American trading port, the manager of an air-freight company is forced to risk his pilots' lives in order to win an important contract, as a traveling American showgirl stops in town.
- DirectorJean CocteauRené ClémentStarsJean MaraisJosette DayMila ParélyA beautiful young woman takes her father's place as the prisoner of a mysterious beast, who wishes to marry her.
- DirectorRobert BressonStarsFrançois LeterrierCharles Le ClaincheMaurice BeerblockA captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from a German prison in France.
- DirectorFrançois TruffautStarsJacqueline BissetJean-Pierre LéaudFrançois TruffautA committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.
- DirectorHal HartleyStarsRobert John BurkeBill SageMartin DonovanDennis is a handsome & bookish college student. His brother, Bill, is a roughhewn ladies' man & thief. Together they search for their dad, confront their expectations of each other, themselves, & their attitudes towards women.
- DirectorRoman PolanskiStarsJack NicholsonFaye DunawayJohn HustonA private detective hired to expose an adulterer in 1930s Los Angeles finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.
- DirectorFrank BorzageStarsSpencer TracyLoretta YoungMarjorie RambeauBill takes Trina into his depression camp cabin. Later, just as he finds showgirl LaRue who will support him, Trina becomes pregnant.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsAbou CamaraMarie Augustine DiattaYama DiedhiouBurial of a Christian political activist in a Muslim cemetary forces a conflict imbued with religious fervor. A satiric portrayal of religion and politics, sometimes humorous, sometimes deadly serious.