My 60 Personal Favourite Films

Sad to say, I have been too busy recently to write for Elan. However, I managed one idle afternoon this past week to take stock of all the wonderful (and, in some cases, less than wonderful) films I've seen over the years. Film is something I've taken quite seriously since the age of sixteen, when my friends and I took the bold step of founding our own film club of sorts. We called it Cult Movie Night and held it normally on Friday evenings back in my hometown of Burlington, Ontario.

It wasn't long, however, before we found ourselves viewing more than mere 'cult films.' Soon, we were watching a wide range of great films, at first primarily American, but eventually European ones also. Several of my best friends at the time attempted to create their own films, often as creative projects for high school English classes. We also took to seeing new and classic foreign films at the Broadway Cinema, then Hamilton's premier art house theatre, which doubled at the time as the city's most stimulating art gallery.

Shortly after completing high school I embarked on a personal study of the history of film, inspired especially by a list of great films passed down to me by a friend's older brother, who for several years had aspired to become the next Al Pacino.

And I have been going out of my way to watch great films ever since.

So, without further ado, here is an alphabetical list of my sixty personal favourite films, including their titles, directors, and year of release. Most of my choices I would assume others might support as well, though there are no doubt films in my list whose virtues are peculiar to my own personal tastes. Nevertheless ... happy reading, and, perhaps, as well, happy viewing ...

My 60 Personal Favourite Films

-Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (Akira Kurosawa, 1990)
-American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999)
-Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
-Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
-Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006)
-Baraka (Ron Fricke, 1992)
-Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
-The Breakfast Club (John Hughes, 1985)
-Che (Steven Soderberg, 2008)
-Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
-Closer (Mike Nichols, 2004)
-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee 2000)
-Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1990)
-Dead Poet's Society (Peter Weir, 1989)
-The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)
-Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)
-8 and a Half (Federico Fellini, 1963)
-Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
-Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
-Ferris Bueller's Day Off (John Hughes, 1986)
-The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)
-Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982)
-The Godfather I (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
-The Gospel of John (Philip Saville, 2003)
-It's A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
-Ivan's Childhood (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962)
-Jean de Florette (Claude Berri, 1986)
-Koyaanisquatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1983)
-Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972)
-The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorcese, 1988)
-The Lives of Others (Florean Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
-The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)
-Lost in Translation (Sophia Coppola, 2003)
-Love, Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003)
-Manon of the Spring (Claude Berri, 1986)
-The Merchant of Venice (Michael Radford, 2004)
-Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008)
-The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
-A Month in the Country (Pat O'Connor, 1987)
-Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, 1975)
-Mrs. Dalloway (Marlene Gorris, 1997)
-Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess, 2004)
-No Country for Old Men (Coen Brothers, 2007)
-Pride and Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005)
-Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994)
-The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986)
-Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977)
-The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
-Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
-The Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
-A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)
-The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)
-The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
-3-Iron (Ki-duk Kim, 2004)
-2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
-Walk on Water (Eytan Fox, 2004)
-Waterwalker (Bill Mason, 1986)
-When Harry Met Sally (Rob Reiner, 1989)
-Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1988)
-Witness (Peter Weir, 1985)