The 100 Greatest Films Ever Made (part one)

Hello, and welcome to part one of The 100 Greatest Films Ever Made (at least according to Days Are Numbers, or just me, anyway). When thinking of suitable ways to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the launch of this very website, I thought long and hard about the feasibility of compiling a definitive list of my 100 favourite films of all time.

Then I thought, fuck it. Who doesn’t love these kind of lists? And, moreover, when will I get the chance to embark on such a fantastic endeavour again? It’s not been easy, dear reader, and some painful sacrifices had to be made. If you’re looking for Brighton Rock or Badlands, for example, well they just missed the final cut, decisions which surely bear the mark of the high standard being set here (even if I do say so myself!).

But, what the blazes did make the Top 100, then? There’s only one way to find out…

100. Tommy (Ken Russell, 1975)

The enfant terrible of British cinema brings The Who’s cryptic, quasi-religious rock opera to life with typically bombastic panache and weird sensuality. Russell’s most visually high-impact film, and that’s really saying something.

99. Branded to Kill (Seijun Suzuki, 1967)

Barmy Japanese gangster film about a kinky hitman engaged in a spooky cat-and-mouse death game with a rival assassin. This is so mental that director Suzuki was banned from making films for over 10 years as a result!

98. The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

I had an argument once with someone who maintained that Persona was Bergman’s most famous film. Nay, said I, ’tis The Seveth Seal. History later proved me to be correct when, following the great director’s death, John Snow and Krishnan Guru-Murthy engaged in a ghostly game of chess (as featured in the latter film) at the end of Channel 4 News. A fitting tribute.

97. Alice, Sweet Alice (Alfred Sole, 1977)

A young girl is murdered as she is about to take her first Holy Communion, is her disturbed elder sister to blame? A complex and terrifying slasher film, second only in the entire genre to Halloween.

96. Lift to the Scaffold (Louis Malle, 1958)

A murderer is trapped in a lift as he returns to the scene of the crime to remove a forgotten piece of incriminating evidence, in Louis Malle’s smokey Gallic noir. Boasts a wonderful Miles Davis score.

95. Vampires in Havana (Juan Padron, 1985)

Bizarre Cuban animation about an international turf war between Vampires vying for an antidote to sunlight. The jokes and pop culture references are as witty as Padron’s memorable animation style is off-kilter.

94. The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, 1964)

The best of Corman’s impressive cycle of micro-budget Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, with Nicolas Roeg’s ravishing cinematography and Vincent Price’s chilling theatrics raising it above it’s peers. You might recognise the above poster from outside the cinema in Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video.

93. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento, 1970)

The startlingly accomplished and original directorial debut from Dario Argento. With this, he would single handedly re-invent the Giallo genre and ensure it’s huge popularity for the rest of the decade.

92. Verboten! (Samuel Fuller, 1959) 

Fuller’s sizzling post-World War II melodrama concerns an American GI in love with a local girl of dubious loyalties in occupied Nazi Germany. Paul Anka tries his hardest to ruin it with a hatefully cheesy title song.

91. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)

“She’s my sister! She’s my daughter! She’s my sister AND my daughter!” Jack Nicholson slaps some sense into Faye Dunaway in Roman Polanski’s sour and tragic neo-noir.

90. Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977)

A suitably bleak and askew take on the road movie, from the gloomy Bavarian mystic. Eccentric star Bruno S. deserves to be as celebrated as Herzog’s other charge, Klaus Kinski.

89. Ariel (Aki Kaurismaki, 1988)

Another road movie, this time a little more chipper (though, only just). Kaurismaki’s twin obsessions of alienation and Americana are fully explored as a trip across Finland in an inherited Cadillac ends in disaster.

88. The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

Audio surveillance expert Gene Hackman gets a little too wrapped up in a job and begins to suspect that he himself is being listened to… But, by who? A brilliant, technically astounding study of paranoia, it’s incredible that Francis Ford Coppola squeezed this out between the first two Godfather films.

87. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)

A child killer stalks the streets of 1930s Berlin, until the local populace, including an unsavoury criminal element, decide to take action. Intelligent, ahead-of-its-time thriller from one of cinema’s true innovators.

86. Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986)

The fun and frothy facade of Jonathan Demme’s 80s take on the screwball comedy conceals a darker message concerning freedom and identity in Yuppie America. It’s still a barrel of laughs, mind, and features an intense, career-launching turn from a young Ray Liotta.

85. The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)

“This here Citizen Kane, then… Isn’t it the greatest film ever made?” Well, it’s not bad, of course, but I don’t think it’s even the greatest film Orson Welles ever made! I bestow that honour on his sterling adaptation of Kafka’s existentialist bible, The Trial.

84. Black Peter (Milos Forman, 1964)

The feature-length debut from Czech New Wave maestro, Milos Forman, and the second best film ever made about the pain, misery and embarrassment of having to find work for the first time (for the first best film about that, don’t miss part two of this list!).

83. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)

Altman’s best, a witty, wise and melancholy Western set in snowy Washington State, and featuring Warren Beatty playing against type as a hapless buffoon. Julie Christie also excels as a crafty whore house madam, and there’s a dazzling Leonard Cohen soundtrack, to boot.

82. Danger: Diabolik (Mario Bava, 1968)

You can stick yer Batman’s and yer Superman’s; kinky, crafty and colourful, Diabolik is the superhero (or, should that be super anti-hero?) to beat. Mario Bava’s film is commonly acknowledged as one of the greatest comic book adaptations of all time.

81. Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975)

Bursting with witty, gritty dialogue, and featuring one of the bravest main characters of an especially brave decade for cinema, Sidney Lumet’s tale of a gay bank robber botching a big job is one of the finest crime films of the 70s.

80. Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968)

Roger Corman produced, and Samuel Fuller co-wrote, this incendiary debut by Peter Bogdanovich. A deranged Vietnam vet goes on a cross-town killing spree, before finally being confronted by horror legend Boris Karloff at a drive-in movie theatre.

79. Withnail & I (Bruce Robinson, 1986)

Richard E. Grant is generally a Grade A prat, but here he is simply peerless as the roguish, reckless, and ultimately doomed, Withnail. The best film ever made about dashed dreams, failing friendship, booze, booze, and more booze.

78. Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962)

A deceptively simple film that packs a staggering emotional punch, in which we spend two hours in the company of young pop star Cleo as she awaits the results of a hospital test for a possibly life-threatening illness. Agnes Varda was the leading female director of the French New Wave.

77. The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)

A film with true legendary status, and a simply jaw-dropping finale, is there anyone who doesn’t love this tale of a pious Scottish cop stranded on a pagan island? The moronically misguided 2006 American remake is officially the worst film of all time.

76. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Easily the most influential horror film of the modern era, Psycho ensured Alfred Hitchcock a guaranteed place in the public conscience as cinema’s master showman. Watching it remains a scalp-tinglingly frightening experience even today, and that infamous first murder endures as a masterclass in the unexpected.

75. Alice in the Cities (Wim Wenders, 1974)

A slow-burning, poem of a film, Wim Wender’s made his name with a series of downbeat road movies, of which Alice in the Cities is the best. A slacker photographer finds himself lumbered with the young girl of the title, and resolves to help her find her way home. Canned Heat and Chuck Berry feature in a superbly chosen soundtrack.

74. Blue Sunshine (Jeff Lieberman, 1976)

This criminally overlooked, and highly original, horror film should be enough to have everyone just saying “NO!”, as a bunch of acid casualities turn into murderous, bald psychopaths. Director Jeff Lieberman has a handful of other genre mini-classics in his resume, including killer worm movie, Squirm.

73. Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986)

Bickering cellmates John Lurie and Tom Waits grasp a chance to escape from prison following the arrival of child-like Italian, Roberto Benigni. The three soon find they must continue to stick together in the swamplands of New Orleans, or else they’ll get caught and hauled back inside. Jarmusch’s comedy is both lazily cool and painfully funny.

72. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943)

A surprisingly sweet and touching account of the final days of the British Empire, as stuffy, but essentially decent, Blimp must change his ways in order to face the rising threat of the Nazis. As per usual, an inventive visual feast from Powell and Pressburger.

71. I Hired a Contract Killer (Aki Kaurismaki, 1990)

The mighty Finn again, with a film that might possibly be the definition of “black comedy”. Lonely loser Jean-Pierre Leaud takes the unusual step of hiring the titular assassin to do him in, after several failed suicide attempts. But when our condemned hero finds love, and decides that he doesn’t want to die after all, he finds to his despair that it might be too late to call off the contract.

70. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)

Jacques Demy’s bittersweet musical is actually more of a mini-opera, as every word of dialogue is set to Michel “Windmills of Your Mind” Legrand’s impeccable score. The almost unbearably sad ending serves as a bleak hymn to lost love.

69. Le Mepris (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)

A film about filmmaking that could only have sprung from the mind of Jean-Luc Godard, Le Mepris is part acidic fantasy, part realist melodrama. Beautifully shot by regular Godard collaborator, Raoul Coutard, and with an exquisite score by Georges Delerue, the eclectic cast includes Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, and director Fritz Lang.

68. Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995)

That very same Georges Delerue score turns up to haunting effect in Martin Scorsese’s often underrated, Las Vegas-based mob epic, Casino. Robert De Niro plays a smalltown hood made good in gambling mecca, but whose glitzy empire comes under threat following a beef with wild card enforcer Joe Pesci, largely reprising his role from Goodfellas. Sharon Stone chalks up a career-best performance as the woman who comes between them. Like all classic Scorsese the emphasis is placed on the dangerous emotional involvement between the central characters, bonds which are destined to be broken in violence and tragedy.

67. Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962)

A textbook example of how to successfully adapt a novel for the screen, as Stanley Kubrick takes Vladimir Nabokov’s wordy, controversial tome and moulds it into a bone-dry, highbrow farce. Peter Sellers shines as shady master of disguise Clare Quilty, a character scarcely glimpsed in the novel, but expanded here to shadow James Mason’s every move, as he seeks to steal away the teenage nymphet of the title. If you want a textbook example of how not to successfully adapt a novel for the screen, watch the creepy 1997 version.

66. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)

Aneet told me that be-quiffed film critic Mark Kermode was on TV recently banging on about what a negative effect Jaws, the original hyped-up, mega-blockbuster, box office smash, has had on cinema since it’s release. He’s sort of got a point, but come on, Jaws is absolutely brilliant. Technically superb, taut, chilling, thrilling, bloody and frightening; did Steven Spielberg really direct this?

65. Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1996)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s first film, and still his best, a dark and low-key crime drama. A dried-up old crook befriends a luckless young gambler, but both men’s worlds begin to unravel after it is revealed the elder man has an ulterior motive. Features a quartet of great performances from the four leads; Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Samuel L. Jackson, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Yes, Gwyneth Paltrow.

64. Le notti bianche (Luchino Visconti, 1957)

Best known for slick, gaudy dramas such as The Damned and Death in Venice, the early career of Luchino Visconti contains several modest classics, the best of which is this adaptation of a Dostoevsky story. A sad and beautiful tale of unrequited love, false promises and faith in the face of temptation, keen eyed Profondo Rosso fans may spot that film’s Clara Calamai in a supporting role.

63. Lord Love a Duck (George Axelrod, 1966)

George Axelrod wrote The Seven Year Itch from scratch, as well as adapting the screenplays for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Manchurian Candidate. Less reknowned, however, is Lord Love a Duck, his directorial debut, and one of the oddest, not to mention funniest, comedies ever made. Roddy McDowall plays a sociopathic student determined to help one of his peer’s achieve fame in this wacked-out satire of 60s frivolity.

62. Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)

Powell found himself without Pressburger for this intelligent psychodrama, which remains frightening to this day. One of the greatest ever ruminations on cinema’s uneasy relationship with voyeurism and violence, German star Carl Boehm films his victims as he impales them on a spike mounted on his film camera. Released in the same year as Psycho, Peeping Tom tops even that in terms of creepy, perverse terror.

61. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

So, why do all them birds start swooping out of the sky and killing people? The fact that this is never once explained in the film has often been cited as a major sticking point for some people, but for fans of this uniquely unsettling masterpiece, it serves as a glowing testament to Hitchcock’s malevolent sense of mischief, and his ability to extract pure terror from the seemingly mundane. The hilarious trailer he made for this film rivals the more famous one for Psycho, too.

60. Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976)

A genius reimagining of Howard Hawks’ seminal Western, Rio Bravo, as an urban nightmare, with a vengeful street gang storming an understrength police station to spring a wanted prisoner. Carpenter’s own tough, electronic score has helped to make Assault on Precinct 13 the stuff of legend, and it’s reputation has even survived a limp remake, in 2005.

59. The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)

Perhaps Alec Guiness’ greatest creation, the mild-mannered, but sinister, Professor Marcus is the criminal mastermind at the head of a group of robbers about to pull off the perfect heist. The only trouble is that a lovely little old lady, who owns the rooming house they’re holed up in with the loot, might grass them up if she finds out what they’ve done. Surely it would be easier to just bump her off? Wouldn’t it? Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers also star in Ealing’s very best.

58. A Fistful of Dynamite (Sergio Leone, 1971) 

The most overlooked film in the Leone canon (aside from his universally ignored debut, The Colossus of Rhodes), A Fistful of Dynamite deserves to be held in much higher regard, being as it is, an amusing, action-packed and even surprisingly political film about an Irish mercenary’s exploits in the Mexican revolution. Ennio Morricone’s equal-parts silly and sentimental score could be the best thing he’s ever done.

57. Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)

These days, Germany seems to produce a handful of films about the Second World War every year. Downfall appears to have started this trend, but it has yet to be bettered. Remarkably featuring the first ever screen portrayal of Hitler by a German actor, it is a powerful and frequently harrowing account of the fall of Berlin and the Third Reich at the end of the war, as seen through the eyes of the Furher’s timid secretary, Traudl Junge.

56. The Brood (David Cronenberg, 1979)

Cronenberg’s best film, in which a strange new form of physical therapy causes a woman to give birth to violent mutant babies that seek out and kill all who have wronged her in the past. Oliver Reed plays the barmy quack who’s conducting this therapy, but will he be able to save the woman’s estranged daughter after the creatures steal her away? The Brood is almost unbearably intense in places, and deserves to be acknowledged as one of the greatest horror films of the last 30 years.

55. The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)

A victim of abuse in childhood, the conformist of the title strives throughout his adult life to fit in with those around him. When the fascists take power in pre-war Italy, he has no qualms about assassinating his old college professor at their request. Bernardo Bertolucci’s film offers a coolly intelligent insight into how events from the past can inform one’s emotional and psychological make-up with dark effect. Francis Ford Coppola borrowed the film’s rich, period look for The Godfather.

54. Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000)

Lars von Trier divides opinion like few other directors, and Dancer in the Dark is one of his most divisive films. To some a mawkish and morbid fantasy, to others still a triumph of vapid style over substance. Me? I love it, of course, and it is the only film I have ever had a sob at the end of (I swear it’s the only one!). Icelandic warbler Bjork puts in a brauva performance as a musical-obssessed, immigrant worker in America, who finds herself wrongfully accused of murder. As much an impassioned indictment of capital punishment as it is a paen to romantic escapism.

53. Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968)

Famously featuring a career-best performance from Vincent Price, Witchfinder General remains as shocking today as it did on it’s release. Price stars as the actual historical figure of the title, Matthew Hopkins, who stalked the English countryside during the Civil War, trying and murdering “witches”. This is one of the most relentlessly bleak and brutal films ever made and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s extraordinarily talented director, Michael Reeves, would die following a suspected suicide bid the following year. He was aged just 25, and remains THE great lost talent of British cinema.

52. La Rupture (Claude Chabrol, 1970)

An intensely peculier melodrama from the Gallic master of mystery, Claude Chabrol. The director’s frequent star, and then-wife, Stephane Audran stars as a beseiged mother, fighting a heated custody battle with the rich parents of her druggy ex-husband. When her former in-laws resort to dirty tricks, it’s not long before lies, double-crosses and psychedelic drugs are infecting our heroine’s mind. Chabrol handles this feverish tale with typical aplomb, and wraps it all up with a decidedly weird finale that is once seen, never forgotten.

51. Billy Liar (John Schlesinger, 1963)

The kitchen sink film about the end of the kitchen sink era; in the world Billy Liar inhabits, the terraced house is making way for the high-rise. Against this backdrop of rapidly encroaching modernity, it is impossible not to love Tom Courtenay as the bone-idle fantasist of the title. Billy Liar tells outrageous lies as a way to enliven his humdrum small town existence, all the while dreaming of a move to London. But when free spirit Julie Christie turns up and offers him the chance to move to the capital with her, will he ignore the protestations of his family and take it? Wonderful, witty stuff, and a film I’m sure most of us can identify with.

Well, that brings us to the end of part one! Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to tune in next week for part two of Days Are Numbers 100 Greatest Films Ever Made! What will be number one? Uncle Buck? Jungle 2 Jungle?

Pssst! Look at part two.