David Hare

Strapless; Paris By Night

Voted in the directors’ poll

Voted for

8½	1963	Federico Fellini
Battle of Algiers, The	1966	Gillo Pontecorvo
Heimat		Edgar Reitz
Plaisir, Le	1951	Max Ophüls
Summer Interlude	1950	Ingmar Bergman
Sweet Smell of Success	1957	Alexander Mackendrick
Third Man, The	1949	Carol Reed
Umberto D	1952	Vittorio de Sica
Vanya on 42nd Street	1994	Louis Malle
Vertigo	1958	Alfred Hitchcock

Comments

I’ve tried to select the best things from each of many different traditions: only one is what you would call a British film, though I’ve also included the only two British directors in the history of film ever to do their best work in Hollywood – Hitchcock and MacKendrick. Early Bergman, remember, is even better than late. Heimat is my nod to the long form, which is we can all see is now taking over from the short. All these films either exist outside genre or re-invent it.