Martin Scorsese List of 85 Films
Martin Scorsese List of 85 Films Every Aspiring Filmmaker Needs to See according to Fast Company’s four-hour interview with the one of the most influential directors in Hollywood.
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- DirectorBilly WilderStarsKirk DouglasJan SterlingRobert ArthurA frustrated former big-city journalist now stuck working for an Albuquerque newspaper exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to rekindle his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus.This Billy Wilder film was so tough and brutal in its cynicism that it died a sudden death at the box office, and they re-released it under the title Big Carnival, which didn’t help. Chuck Tatum is a reporter who’s very modern–he’ll do anything to get the story, to make up the story! He risks not only his reputation, but also the life of this guy who’s trapped in the mine.
- DirectorDouglas SirkStarsJane WymanRock HudsonAgnes MooreheadAn upper-class widow falls in love with a much younger, down-to-earth nurseryman, much to the disapproval of her children and criticism of her country club peers.In this Douglas Sirk melodrama, Rock Hudson plays a gardener who falls in love with a society widow played by Jane Wyman. Scandale!
- DirectorElia KazanStarsStathis GiallelisFrank WolffElena KaramA young Greek stops at nothing to secure a passage to America.Drawn directly from director Elia Kazan’s family history, this film offers a passionate, intense view of the challenges faced by Greek immigrants at the end of the 19th century.
- DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsMartin SheenMarlon BrandoRobert DuvallA U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.This Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece is from a period when directors like Brian DePalma, John Milius, Paul Schrader, Scorsese and others had great freedom–freedom that they then lost.
- DirectorVincente MinnelliStarsGene KellyLeslie CaronOscar LevantThree friends struggle to find work in Paris. Things become more complicated when two of them fall in love with the same woman.This Vincente Minnelli film, with Gene Kelly, picked up the idea of stopping within a film for a dance from The Red Shoes.
- DirectorFrank CapraStarsCary GrantPriscilla LaneRaymond MasseyA Brooklyn writer of books on the futility of marriage risks his reputation after he decides to tie the knot. Things get even more complicated when he learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are habitual murderers.Scorsese is a big fan of many Frank Capra movies, and this Cary Grant vehicle is one of several that he’s enjoyed with his family at his office screening room.
- DirectorVincente MinnelliStarsLana TurnerKirk DouglasWalter PidgeonAn unscrupulous movie producer uses an actress, a director and a writer to achieve success.Vincente Minnelli directed this film about a cynical Hollywood mogul trying to make a comeback. It stars Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, and Dick Powell.
- DirectorVincente MinnelliStarsFred AstaireCyd CharisseOscar LevantA pretentiously artistic director is hired for a new Broadway musical and changes it beyond recognition.“It’s my favorite of the Vincente Minnelli musicals. I love the storyline that combines Faust and a musical comedy, and the disaster that results. Tony Hunter, the lead character played by Fred Astaire, is a former vaudeville dancer whose time has passed, and who’s trying to make it on Broadway, which is a very different medium of course. By the time the movie was made, the popularity of the Astaire/Rogers films had waned, raising the question of what are you going to do with Fred Astaire in Technicolor? So, really, Tony Hunter is Fred Astaire–his whole reputation is on the line, and so was Fred Astaire’s.”
- DirectorOliver StoneStarsTom CruiseBryan LarkinRaymond J. BarryThe biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country for which he fought.Produced by Universal Pictures under Tom Pollock and Casey Silver, this Tom Cruise movie (directed by Oliver Stone) was an example of how that studio “wanted to make special pictures,” says Scorsese.
- DirectorJ. Lee ThompsonStarsGregory PeckRobert MitchumPolly BergenA lawyer's family is stalked by a man he once helped put in jail.As he once explained to Steven Spielberg over dinner in Tribeca, one of Scorsese’s fears about directing a remake of this film was that, “The original was so good. I mean, you’ve got Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, it’s terrific!”
- DirectorJacques TourneurStarsSimone SimonTom ConwayKent SmithAn American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.Simone Simon plays a woman who fears that she might turn into a panther and kill. It sounds corny, but the psychological thrills that directors Jacques Tourneur got out of his measly $150,000 budget make this a fascinating movie, with amazing lighting.
- DirectorMax OphülsStarsJames MasonBarbara Bel GeddesRobert RyanAn ambitious young LA department store model gets her wish of marrying a millionaire but she eventually discovers that rich life isn't always a happy one.“There are certain styles I had trouble with at first, like some of Max Ophuls’ films. It took me till I was into my thirties to get The Earrings of Madame de…, for example. But I didn’t have trouble with this one, which I saw in a theater and which is kind of based on Howard Hughes [protagonist of The Aviator].”
- DirectorOrson WellesStarsOrson WellesJoseph CottenDorothy ComingoreFollowing the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'“Orson Welles was a force of nature, who just came in and wiped the slate clean. And Citizen Kane is the greatest risk-taking of all time in film. I don’t think anything had even seen anything quite like it. The photography was also unlike anything we’d seen. The odd coldness of the filmmaker towards the character reflects his own egomania and power, and yet a powerful empathy for all of them–it’s very interesting. It still holds up, and it’s still shocking. It takes storytelling and throws it up in the air.”
- DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsGene HackmanJohn CazaleAllen GarfieldA paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.Gene Hackman stars in this thrilled directed by Scorsese’s friend, Francis Ford Coppola. It’s a classic example of studio risk-taking in the early 1970s.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsRay MillandGrace KellyRobert CummingsA former tennis star arranges the murder of his adulterous wife.When discussing the creation of Hugo, Scorsese referred to this Hitchcock film as an example of other directors who have tangled with 3-D over the years. In its original release most theaters only showed it in 2-D; now the 3-D version pops up in theaters from time to time.
- DirectorSpike LeeStarsDanny AielloOssie DavisRuby DeeOn the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.Spike Lee’s film was the kind of risky production that drew Scorsese to Universal Pictures when it was run by Casey Silver and Tom Pollack. “Then Pollock left,” says Scorsese, “and it all changed.”
- DirectorKing VidorOtto BrowerWilliam DieterleStarsJennifer JonesJoseph CottenGregory PeckBeautiful, biracial Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between two brothers, one good and the other bad.Scorsese went to see this movie, which some critics called “Lust in the Dust,” when he was 4 years old. Jennifer Jones falls hard for a villainous Gregory Peck in this lush King Vidor picture. A poster of the movie hangs in Scorsese’s offices.
- DirectorRex IngramStarsRudolph ValentinoAlice TerryPomeroy CannonAn extended family split up in France and Germany find themselves on opposing sides of the battlefield during World War I.Rex Ingram made this movie, in which Rudolph Valentino dances the tango. Ingram stopped making films when sound came in. Michael Powell’s father worked for Ingram; living in that milieu gave Michael the cultural knowledge that informed his own movies like The Red Shoes.
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniStarsIngrid BergmanAlexander KnoxEttore GianniniA wealthy woman becomes obsessed with humanitarianism when her young son dies after committing suicide.“After making The Flowers of St. Francis, Rossellini asked, what would a modern-day saint be like? I think they based it on Simone Weil, and Ingrid Bergman played the part. It really takes everything we’re dealing with today, whether it’s revolutions in other countries or people trying to change their lifestyles, and it’s all there in that film. The character tries everything, because she has a tragedy in her family that really changes her, so she tries politics and even working in a factory, and in the end it has a very moving resolution.” [Also known as The Greatest Love]
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniStarsAldo FabriziGianfranco BelliniPeparuoloA series of vignettes depicting the lives of the original Franciscan monks, including their leader and the bumbling Ginepro.“This Rossellini movie and Europa ’51 are two of the best films about the part of being human that yearns for something beyond the material. Rossellini used real monks for this movie. It’s very simple and beautiful.”
- DirectorJohn CassavetesStarsJohn MarleyGena RowlandsLynn CarlinA middle-aged man leaves his wife for another woman. Shortly after, his ex-wife also begins a relationship with a younger partner. The film follows their struggles to find love amongst each other.“[Director John] Cassavetes went to Hollywood to shoot films like A Child is Waiting and Too Late Blues, and after Too Late Blues he became disenchanted. Those of us in the New York scene, we kept asking, ‘What’s Cassavetes doing? What’s he up to?’ And he was shooting this film in his house in L.A. with his wife Gena Rowlands and his friends. And when Faces showed at the New York Film Festival, it absolutely trumped everything that was shown at the time. Cassavetes is the person who ultimately exemplifies independence in film.”
- DirectorAbraham PolonskyStarsJohn GarfieldThomas GomezBeatrice PearsonAn unethical lawyer who wants to help his older brother becomes a partner with a client in the numbers racket.Another picture that defined the American gangster image, this noir stars John Garfield as the evil older brother whose younger sibling won’t join his numbers-running conglomerate.
- DirectorAnthony MannStarsSophia LorenStephen BoydAlec GuinnessThe death of Marcus Aurelius leads to a succession crisis, in which the deceased emperor's son, Commodus, demonstrates that he is unwilling to let anything undermine his claim to the Roman Empire.One of the last “sandal epics,” this sweeping Anthony Mann picture boasted a stellar cast of Sophia Loren, Anthony Boyd, James Mason, Alec Guinness, Christopher Plummer, and Anthony Quayle. And it failed miserably at the box office.
- DirectorSamuel FullerStarsBarbara StanwyckBarry SullivanDean JaggerShowdown in Arizona between the Bonnell brothers, U.S.Marshals, and Jessica Drummond, the iron-fist rancher who controls the territory.Barbara Stanwyck stars in this Sam Fuller Western. She plays a bad-ass cattle rancher with a soft spot for a local lawman.
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniStarsEdmund MoeschkeErnst PittschauIngetraud HinzeA young German boy faces the problems of the tough life in the immediate post-WWII Berlin.“Roberto Rossellini always felt he had an obligation to inform. He was the first one to do a story about compassion for the enemy, in this film–it’s always been hard to find, but now there’s a Criterion edition. It’s a very disturbing picture. He was the first one to go there after the war, to say we all have to live together. And he felt cinema was the tool that could do this, that could inform people.”
- DirectorCharles VidorStarsRita HayworthGlenn FordGeorge MacreadyA small-time gambler hired to work in a Buenos Aires casino discovers his employer's new wife is his former lover.“I saw this when I was 10 or 11, I had some sort of funny reaction to her, I tell you! Me and my friends didn’t know what to do about Rita Hayworth, and we didn’t really understand what George McCready was doing to her. Can you imagine? Gilda at age 11. But that’s what we did. We went to the movies.”
- DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsMarlon BrandoAl PacinoJames CaanThe aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.“Gordon Willis did the same dark filming trick on The Godfather as he had done on Klute. And now audiences accepted it, and went along with it, and every director of photography and now every director of photography of the past 40 years owes him the greatest debt, for changing the style completely–until now, of course, with the advent of digital.”
- DirectorJoseph H. LewisStarsJohn DallPeggy CumminsBerry KroegerTwo disturbed young people release their fascination with guns through a crime spree.A romantic example of film noir, this one features a gun-toting husband and a sharpshooting wife.
- DirectorMichael CiminoStarsKris KristoffersonChristopher WalkenJohn HurtDuring the Johnson County War in 1890 Wyoming, a sheriff born into wealth does his best to protect immigrant farmers from rich cattle interests.Scorsese was with United Artists in the ’70s, with producers he describes as ”understanding and supportive.” Heaven’s Gate, one of the ambitious films UA backed at the time, was a critical and box office bomb, although its reputation has improved over the years.
- DirectorRobert AltmanStarsCarol BurnettGlenda JacksonJames GarnerA parody and satire of the U.S. political scene of the time, "HealtH" is set at a health-food convention at a Florida luxury hotel, where a powerful political organization is deciding on a new president.
- DirectorAndré De TothStarsVincent PriceFrank LovejoyPhyllis KirkAn associate burns down a wax museum with the owner inside, but he survives only to become vengeful and murderous.This was the first 3-D movie produced by a major American studio. It starred Vincent Price as a wax sculptor whose sourcing was, shall we say, unusual.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsWalter PidgeonMaureen O'HaraAnna LeeAt the turn of the century in a Welsh mining village, the Morgans, he stern, she gentle, raise coal-mining sons and hope their youngest will find a better life.“I appreciate the visual poetry of [director John] Ford’s film, like in the famous scene where Maureen O’Hara is married and the wind blows the veil on her head. It’s absolute poetry. No words. It’s all there in the image.”
- DirectorRobert RossenStarsPaul NewmanJackie GleasonPiper LaurieAn up-and-coming pool player plays a long-time champion in a single high-stakes match.Scorsese liked the Paul Newman character (Eddie Felson) in this movie so much that when Newman came calling about a possible update of the movie, he agreed to direct The Color of Money. He says the movie’s box office success helped rehabilitate his career after a tough slog.
- DirectorByron HaskinStarsBurt LancasterLizabeth ScottKirk DouglasFrankie Madison leaves prison expecting a share from his ex-partner. But Prohibition bootlegging didn't prepare Frankie for Big Business.One of several movies that Scorsese says clearly defined the American gangster ideal, this one stars Burt Lancaster and the smoldering Lizabeth Scott.
- DirectorFrank CapraStarsClark GableClaudette ColbertWalter ConnollyA rogue reporter trailing a runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops along the way.“I didn’t think much of this Frank Capra film, until I saw it recently on the big screen. And I discovered it was a masterpiece! The body language of Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, the way they related–it’s really quite remarkable.”
- DirectorDon ChaffeyStarsTodd ArmstrongNancy KovackGary RaymondThe legendary Greek hero leads a team of intrepid adventurers in a perilous quest for the legendary Golden Fleece.As part of his film education of his daughter, Scorsese screened a bunch of Ray Harryhausen classics, including this one.
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniStarsIngrid BergmanGeorge SandersMaria MaubanAn unhappily married couple attempts to find direction and insight while vacationing in Naples.“After Rossellini married Ingrid Bergman he wiped the slate clean and left Neo-Realism behind. Instead he made these intimate stories that had a great deal to do with a certain intellectual mysticism, a sense of cultural power. In Viaggio [Viaggio in Italia is the Italian title], for example, the English couple played by George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman are traveling in Naples on vacation while marriage is falling apart, but the land around them–the people the museums, and especially their visit to Pompeii, these thousands of years of culture around them–work on them like a modern miracle. The film is basically two people in a car, and that became the entire New Wave. Kids may not have seen this film, but it’s basically in all the independent film of today.”
- DirectorJoseph L. MankiewiczStarsLouis CalhernMarlon BrandoJames MasonThe growing ambition of Julius Caesar is a source of major concern to his close friend Brutus. Cassius persuades him to participate in his plot to assassinate Caesar but they have both sorely underestimated Mark Antony.This is another example of Orson Welles’ risk-taking, with Caesar’s crew as out-and-out gangsters.” (correction: Orson Welles directed the stage version of Julius Caesar; Joseph Mankiewicz directed the film.)
- DirectorRobert AltmanStarsJennifer Jason LeighMiranda RichardsonHarry BelafonteA pair of kidnappings expose the complex power dynamics within the corrupt and unpredictable workings of 1930s Kansas City.“This is one of the great jazz movies ever. If you could hang on with Altman, you were going to go on one of the great rides of your lives.”
- DirectorRobert AldrichStarsRalph MeekerAlbert DekkerPaul StewartA doomed female hitchhiker pulls Mike Hammer into a deadly whirlpool of intrigue, revolving around a mysterious "great whatsit".A great example of the noir genre that so inspired Scorsese. This one stars Ralph Meeker as detective Mike Hammer.
- DirectorAlan J. PakulaStarsJane FondaDonald SutherlandCharles CioffiA small-town detective searching for a missing man has only one lead: a connection with a New York prostitute.“There are movies that change the whole way in which films are made, like Klute, where Gordon Willis’s photography on the film is so textured, and, they said, too dark. At first this was alarming to people, because they’re used to a certain way things are done within the studio system. And the studio is selling a product, so they were wary of people thinking that it’s too dark.”
- DirectorLuchino ViscontiStarsLuchino ViscontiAntonio PietrangeliAntonio ArcidiaconoIn rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.This Lucchino Visconti film is one of the founding films of Neo-Realism.
- DirectorOrson WellesStarsRita HayworthOrson WellesEverett SloaneFascinated by gorgeous Mrs. Bannister, seaman Michael O'Hara joins a bizarre yachting cruise, and ends up mired in a complex murder plot.“The story goes that Welles had to make a film and he was in this railway station, and there were some paperbacks there and he was talking to Harry Cohn of Columbia and he said look, I’ve got the greatest film it’s called Lady from Shanghai, which was this paperback he saw there. And then he made up this story, taking elements of Moby Dick, where he talks about the sharks, and the whole mirror sequence in that picture is unsurpassed. I don’t know if Lady is a noir, but it’s awkward, and it’s brilliant.”
- DirectorLuchino ViscontiStarsBurt LancasterAlain DelonClaudia CardinaleThe Prince of Salina, a noble aristocrat of impeccable integrity, tries to preserve his family and class amid the tumultuous social upheavals of 1860s Sicily.Visconti and Rossellini and deSica were the founders of Neo-Realism. Visconti went a different way from Rossellini. He made this movie, which is one of the greatest films ever made.”
- DirectorJohn BoultingStarsRobert DonatMaria SchellRenée AshersonA chronicle of the life of William Friese-Greene, a British inventor and early pioneer in cinema.“There were a number of people who felt that they had invented moving pictures. Robert Donat plays William Friese-Greene, one of those people, who’s obsessed from childhood with movement and color. Donat was a great actor. And this is a beautifully done film.”
- DirectorRobert AltmanStarsWarren BeattyJulie ChristieRene AuberjonoisA gambler and a prostitute become business partners in a remote Old West mining town, and their enterprise thrives until a large corporation arrives on the scene.“This is an absolute masterpiece. Altman could shoot quickly and get the very best actors.”
- DirectorOrson WellesStarsOrson WellesJeanette NolanDan O'HerlihyMacbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.“This was the first Welles movie I saw, on television. He shot it in 27 days. The look of it, the Celtic barbarism, the Druid priest, this was all very different from other Macbeth productions I’d seen. The use of superimpositions, the effigies at the beginning of the film–it was more like cinema than theatre. Anything Welles did, given his background in radio, was a big risk. Macbeth is an audacious film, set in Haiti of all places.”
- DirectorMichael PowellEmeric PressburgerStarsDavid NivenKim HunterRobert CooteA British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court, hoping to prolong his fledgling romance with an American girl.“This is another beautiful film by Powell and Pressburger, but it was made after World War II, so people said, ‘You can’t use the word ‘Death’ in the title!’ So it got changed to Stairway to Heaven, that’s what it was called in America. Now it’s A Matter of Life and Death again.”
- DirectorPaul SchraderStarsKen OgataMasayuki ShionoyaHiroshi MikamiA fictionalized account in four chapters of the life of celebrated Japanese writer Yukio Mishima.Scorsese describes this Paul Schrader film about the great Japanese author as a “masterpiece.”
- DirectorFrank CapraStarsGary CooperJean ArthurGeorge BancroftA unassuming greeting card poet from a small town in Vermont heads to New York City upon inheriting a massive fortune and is immediately hounded by those who wish to take advantage of him.In this Frank Capra movie, one of several that Scorsese has screened for his family, Gary Cooper plays a small-town boy who inherits a fortune–and a bevy of big-city sharpies that he can’t quite contend with.
- DirectorFrank CapraStarsJames StewartJean ArthurClaude RainsA naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.Jimmy Stewart stars in this Capra movie, one of the all-time greats, which features a dramatic filibuster.
- DirectorRobert AltmanStarsKeith CarradineKaren BlackRonee BlakleyOver the course of a few hectic days, numerous interrelated people prepare for a political convention.“Altman had a point of view that was uniquely American and an artistic vision to go with it. All his early work pointed to this movie.”
- DirectorJules DassinStarsRichard WidmarkGene TierneyGoogie WithersA small-time grifter and nightclub tout takes advantage of some fortuitous circumstances and tries to become a big-time player as a wrestling promoter.“It’s the essential British noir film. Harry Fabien, played by Richard Widmark, is a two-bit hustler running through the London underworld at night, and he always oversteps, particularly with the gangster played by Herbert Lom. From the very beginning you know Fabien’s going to fail, because he’s up against a power he doesn’t understand.
- DirectorBilly WilderStarsJames CagneyHorst BuchholzPamela TiffinIn West Berlin during the Cold War, a Coca-Cola executive is given the task of taking care of his boss' socialite daughter.A classic Billy Wilder comedy, starring James Cagney as a Coca-Cola exec in West Berlin. The dialogue crackles.
- DirectorOrson WellesStarsOrson WellesMicheál MacLiammóirRobert CooteThe Moorish General Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his Lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality, it is all part of the scheme of a bitter Ensign named Iago.“It took (Orson Welles) years to finish this. There were tons of quick cuts, and there’s a wonderful sequence where two people are attacked in a Turkish bath, and it works beautifully. They’re wearing towels, and one is dispatched under the boards. It has a strange North African whiteness. It turns out that he was ready to do the sequence, and the costumes didn’t show up. So he said, let’s put it in a Turkish bath. He had the actors there! He had to shoot it!”
- DirectorMichael PowellStarsKarlheinz BöhmAnna MasseyMoira ShearerA young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.“Michael Powell himself gambled everything on Peeping Tom and lost in such a way that his career was really ended. The film was so shocking to some British critics and the audience because he had some sympathy, sort of, for the serial killer. And the killer had the audacity to photograph the killing of the women with a motion picture camera, which of course tied in the motion picture camera as an object of voyeurism, implicating all of us watching horror films. He was reviled. One critic said this should be flushed down the toilet. He only got one or two more movies done. He really disappeared. And now in England there are cameras watching everyone all over the street.”
- DirectorSamuel FullerStarsRichard WidmarkJean PetersThelma RitterA pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.Richard Widmark picks up the wrong purse in this classic noir, unwittingly setting off a series of events that come to a violent climax.
- DirectorRobert AltmanStarsTim RobbinsGreta ScacchiFred WardA Hollywood studio executive is being sent death threats by a writer whose script he rejected, but which one?“In the years before this movie, the age of the director who had a free hand came to an end. And yet Altman kept experimenting with different kinds of actors, different approaches to narrative, different equipment, until finally he hit it with this movie, which took him off onto a whole other level.”
- DirectorWilliam K. HowardStarsSpencer TracyColleen MooreRalph MorganThe tragic life story of a power-hungry industrialist is recounted in the aftermath of his death.“Directed by William K. Howard and written by Preston Sturges, it had a structure that Mankiewicz and Welles used for Citizen Kane.”
- DirectorJohn FordStarsJohn WayneClaire TrevorAndy DevineA group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo and learn something about each other in the process.“Welles drew from everywhere. The ceilings and the interiors in John Ford’s classic Western inspired him for Citizen Kane.”
- DirectorAnthony MannStarsDennis O'KeefeClaire TrevorMarsha HuntJoe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe) has taken the rap for Rick (Raymond Burr), who double-crosses him with a flawed escape plan and other means intended to get rid of him.NOT the Arnold Schwarzenegger pic. This one’s a noir directed by Anthony Mann, starring Dennis O’Keefe and Claire Trevor.
- DirectorMichael PowellEmeric PressburgerStarsAnton WalbrookMarius GoringMoira ShearerA young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.“There’s something so rich and powerful about the story, and the use of the color, that it deeply affected me when I was 9 or 10 years old. The archness of the approach, and how serious the ballet dancers were … When they say, “The spotlight toujours on moi,” they mean it! The ballet sequence is almost like the first rock video. It’s almost as if you’re seeing what the dancer sees and hears and feels as she’s moving. It’s like in Raging Bull, where we never went outside the ring for the fighting sequences.”
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniStarsJean-Marie PatteRaymond JourdanCésar SilvagniAfter the death of Cardinal Mazarin, young king Louis XIV decides to assert his power to control the aristocracy.“In the third part of his career, Rossellini decided to make an encyclopedia, a series of didactic films. This is the first film in that series, and it’s an artistic masterpiece. He shot it in 16mm for TV, and called it anti-dramatic. Yet, I screen it once every couple of years, and when you look at frames of it on the big screen there are shots that just look like paintings. Rossellini couldn’t get away from it, he had an artist’s eye. There’s nothing like the last 10 minutes of that film to show the accumulation and the display of power. It’s not done through the sword or the speech, it’s done through the theatre he created around him with his clothes, his food, the way he eats. It’s extraordinary.”
- DirectorRaoul WalshStarsJames CagneyHumphrey BogartPriscilla LaneThree men attempt to make a living in Prohibitionist America after returning home from fighting together in World War I.James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart star in this homage to the gangsters of the 1920s. It was one of the many great films made in 1939 (like Gone with the Wind, The Women, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Stagecoach and many many more).
- DirectorLuchino ViscontiStarsAlain DelonRenato SalvatoriAnnie GirardotHaving recently been uprooted to Milan, Rocco and his four brothers each look for a new way in life when a prostitute comes between Rocco and his brother Simone.“This Visconti film was also a major influence on filmmakers.”
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniStarsAnna MagnaniAldo FabriziMarcello PaglieroDuring the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944, the Resistance leader, Giorgio Manfredi, is chased by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a way to escape.“I saw Italian movies as a 5-year-old, on a 16-inch TV my father bought. We were living in Queens. There were only three stations. One station showed Italian films on Friday night for the Italian-American community, subtitled, and the family would gather to see the films. My grandparents were there–they were the ones who moved over in 1910. So it became a ritual. [Director Roberto] Rossellini had an intellectual approach.”
- DirectorGeorg Wilhelm PabstStarsWerner KraussRuth WeyherIlka GrüningA scientist is tormented by an irrational fear of knives and the irresistible compulsion to murder his wife.“This was a silent movie whose flashback structure was unlike anything else. Secrets of the Soul looked almost experimental.”
- DirectorLuchino ViscontiStarsFarley GrangerAlida ValliMassimo GirottiAn Italian Countess is allied with Nationalists during the Italian-Austrian war of unification. However, she risks betraying their cause when she falls in love with an Austrian lieutenant.“An extraordinary film by Visconti, another Neo-Realist masterpiece.”
- DirectorSamuel FullerStarsPeter BreckConstance TowersGene EvansBent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, a journalist commits himself to a mental institution to solve a strange and unclear murder.A wild Sam Fuller movie about a journalist who enters an insane asylum to try to break a story.
- DirectorVincente MinnelliStarsFrank SinatraDean MartinShirley MacLaineA veteran returns home to deal with family secrets and small-town scandals.This Vincent Minnelli melodrama is definitely not a musical. It’s a tough story about an alcoholic Army vet returning home. It stars Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine.
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniStarsIngrid BergmanMario VitaleRenzo CesanaKarin, a young woman from the Baltic countries, marries fisherman Antonio to escape from a prison camp. But she cannot get used to the tough life in Antonio's volcano-threatened village, Stromboli."This too was a very important film of Rossellini’s second period. Very beautiful.” (During the shooting of Stromboli, the star, Ingrid Bergman, who was married to an American dentist, got pregnant with Rossellini’s child. She divorced the dentist, and became persona non grata in America).
- DirectorPreston SturgesStarsJoel McCreaVeronica LakeRobert WarwickHollywood director John L. Sullivan sets out to experience life as a homeless person in order to gain relevant life experience for his next movie.“Billy Wilder told me, you’re only as good as your last picture. Sullivan, played by Joel McRae, is in the studio system, under that kind of pressure. He makes comedies, but one day he decides he really wants to make ‘Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?’ He puts it all on the line to learn about the poor. The resolution of the movie is very moving.”
- DirectorAlexander MackendrickStarsBurt LancasterTony CurtisSusan HarrisonPowerful but unethical Broadway columnist J.J. Hunsecker coerces unscrupulous press agent Sidney Falco into breaking up his sister's romance with a jazz musician.Like Ace in the Hole, this classic noir is about an unethical journalist who will stop at nothing to get his way. Burt Lancaster plays the journalist.
- DirectorMichael PowellEmeric PressburgerStarsMoira ShearerRobert RounsevilleLudmilla TchérinaA melancholy poet reflects on three women he loved and lost in the past: a mechanical performing doll, a Venetian courtesan, and the consumptive daughter of a celebrated composer.“This was a great risk for Powell and Pressburger. In fact, they lost it on that. He had in mind a composed film like a piece of music, and played the music back on set during the shooting, so the actors moved in a certain way.”
- DirectorCarol ReedStarsOrson WellesJoseph CottenAlida ValliPulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.“Carroll Reed made one of those films where everything came together. It made me see, with Kane, that there was another way of interpreting stories, and another approach to the visual frame of the classical films…all those low shots, and the cuts.”
- DirectorOrson WellesStarsCharlton HestonOrson WellesJanet LeighA stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping and police corruption in a Mexican border town.“Welles’ radio career with the Mercury Theater made him a master of the soundtrack. Just listen to this movie–you can close your eyes and imagine everything that is happening.” (Young people should listen to the radio soundtrack of War of the Worlds, which was so effective that people got in their cars and started to drive away, because they really believed that Martians were attacking.)
- DirectorOrson WellesStarsAnthony PerkinsArnoldo FoàJess HahnAn unassuming office worker is arrested and stands trial, but he is never made aware of his charges.This is another film that gave us a new way of looking at films. You’re very aware of the camera, like when Anthony Perkins came running down this corridor of wooden slats and light cutting the image, blades and shafts of light, talk about paranoia!”
- DirectorVincente MinnelliStarsKirk DouglasEdward G. RobinsonCyd CharisseAfter spending three years in an asylum, a washed-up actor views a minor assignment from his old director in Rome as a chance for personal and professional redemption.The Vincente Minnelli movie stars Cyd Charisse, Kirk Douglas, and Edward G. Robinson. It’s a classic 1960s melodrama.
- DirectorJohn SchlesingerStarsDustin HoffmanJon VoightSylvia MilesA naive hustler travels from Texas to New York City to seek personal fortune, finding a new friend in the process.One of the great movies released by UA in its glory days, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight.
- DirectorJohn CassavetesStarsBen CarruthersLelia GoldoniHugh HurdCassavetes' jazz-scored improvisational film explores interracial friendships and relationships in Beat-Era (1950s) New York City.“I saw Shadows at the 8th Street Playhouse [in Manhattan], and when I saw such a direct communication with the human experience, of conflict and love, it was almost as if there was no camera there at all. And I love camera positions! But this was like you were living with the people.”
- 19752h