Brian Dillon

Research tutor, Royal College of Art

Voted in the critics’ poll

Voted for

Big Sleep, The	1946	Howard Hawks
Empire	1964	Andy Warhol
Jetée, La	1962	Chris Marker
Last Year At Marienbad	1961	Alain Resnais
London	1994	Patrick Keiller
Matter of Life and Death, A	1946	Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger
Performance	1970	Donald Cammell/Nicolas Roeg
Stalker	1979	Andrei Tarkovsky
Two-Lane Blacktop	1971	Monte Hellman
Way Things Go, The	1987	Peter Fischli/David Weiss

Comments

I can’t claim that this list is more (or less) than a wholly subjective snapshot of films that have obsessed, haunted me or helped me out with some writing crisis over the years. One or two that are simply joyous pleasures to be revisited regularly. But looking at the finished list, it is surprising how many films are somehow to do with stasis: the still photos of La Jetée, the frozen moments of Marienbad and A Matter of Life and Death. Even the ones that are all about unabated movement (Two-Lane Blacktop, The Way Things Go) seem to burn out in repetition, going nowhere. But those are thesis-ready thoughts, and this list is really about love.