Ruy Gardnier

Critic, Contracampo, O Globo

Brazil

Voted in the critics’ poll

Voted for

Atalante, L'	1934	Jean Vigo
Europa 51	1952	Roberto Rossellini
Flowers of Shanghai	1998	Hsiao-hsien Hou
Fort Apache	1948	John Ford
Modern Times	1936	Charles Chaplin
Only Angels Have Wings	1939	Howard Hawks
Pierrot le Fou	1965	Jean-Luc Godard
Playtime	1967	Jacques Tati
Sansho Dayu	1954	Mizoguchi Kenji
Tropical Malady	2004	Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Comments

There are probably 200 films that deserve to be on this list, by Bresson, Dreyer, Brakhage, Lang, Stroheim, Fassbinder, Rocha, Oliveira, Hitchcock, Kiarostami, Straub/Huillet and others. It would be possible, on the other hand, to choose ten films all by Ford, Godard or Mizoguchi. This is a personal list of masterpieces that loosely represent cinema’s greatest possibilities of expression and thought expansion through mise en scène.