Now I love the Criteron collection and it’s website that has ten favourite films by various actors directors , writers and celebs (so far no one famous for being famous thank god ) . So I decide to do a weekend rundown post of my ten favourite films after a few days thinking about it I came up with my list .
1. Wings of desire dir Wim Wenders –
Well I mention Wender a lot in my post this film was my first intro to him seeing it when it first came out in the UK mainly due to the Nick Cave connection at the time , this hymn to Berlin shot in sepia Black and White capture west berlin just before the wall fell .It is the story of two angels observing the city from an old man reflect on the cities past glory , a little girl and a woman left behind by the circus that one of the angels falls in love with .
2. Alphaville Dir – Jean- Luc Goddard
French sci-fi classic a detective is sent out to a city to find a missing person , along side that the city is run by a tyrant that that he needs to find and free the city from , This movie also in black and white is a touchstone for some great films to follow and my favourite Goddard film .Its a mix of french chic meets american noir the main character could have walk off a classic american crime novel .
3.The English patient dir Anthony Minghella
An injured Airman ? well is he English , we see a story of a love affair in the days before world war two and the injured man true story is seen as we see what is hiddden in his book the picture paintings of the better days before he was injured in a terrible plane crash . Beautifully shot from one of my all time favourite books . So sad Minghella died a few years ago he made some great films and before that some great tv shows. This is one best film adaptations .
4.Stand by me dir Rob Reiner
Four boys of to see a dead body , along the way they learn more about each other and the world around them . Rob Reiner has a retro take on a fifties america small town and when a boy disappearing was still news .This was one of the first dvd I brought and has been the most watched over that time .All from the master of horror Stephen King
5.Amelie dir Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Kooky french girl , looks for a mysterious man that she has found photos of whilst connect a man with his youth saving her father by gnomenapping his garden gnome . quirky , funny and most of all uplifting on a gloomy day this film makes you look at the world a fresh .
6.The life aquatic with Steve Zissou dir Wes Anderson
well any film by Anderson , but this is my favourite , father and son bonding as he completes a moby dick like hunt for a mythical shark for the latest in his aquatic film series . Add to that Bill Murray in brilliant form , hip addidas trainers (I want some Zissou’s ,when I can afford them ) and Bowie sung in Brazilian .
7.Control dir Anton Corbjin
This film ticks so many boxes for me , its set in a big part in the part of the world I grew up in Cheshire and Manchester . It is about one of my favourite bands Joy division and lastly it is direct by the great pop photographer of the new wave era .This film also introduced a great new star in Sam Riley
8. Anne Hall dir Woody Allen
What can I say , man remember failed love affair .Allen in his best years as a director and actor . I love most of his films and he recently has returned to form after a number of weaker films early in the 2000’s .
9 .The third man dir Carol Reed
Orson Welles as a charismatic con man in post war Vienna selling items on the black market bu has he gone to far this time ? Is he even alive as he has supposedly died but who saw the body . Great tension from the novel by Graham Greene .
10. Citzen kane dir Orson welles
A news man tries to find out the story behind the citizen Khan , the dead owner of a huge fortune from his humble beginnings to running a paper . Wonderful clever shots made this film an instant classic and heralded a new star that maybe never matched the brilliance of this film . Orson Welles a larger than life man who once touched brilliance directing this film .
Please what are your top ten films ?
Winstonsdad's Blog 
Jul 11, 2015 @ 19:22:43
That’s hard! But these are some of my favourites:
Grand Budapest Hotel
Orphee
Belle et la Bete
Doctor Zhivago
Duck Soup
High Anxiety
Jul 11, 2015 @ 19:28:32
I like grand Budapest just love life aquatic he makes such great films high anxiety is so funny I nearly pick a hitchcock
Jul 11, 2015 @ 19:45:29
Oh, this is always difficult limiting it to ten so it would probably be a different ten if I compiled it tomorrow or the next day. Anyway here’s a taster:
Hannah and Her Sisters
Jean de Florette
Downfall
The Straight Story
Life Is Sweet
Dead Man’s Shoes
Withnail & I
The Life of Brian
Braindead
Dr Strangelove
Though I’m looking at my list and would love to include some Marx Bros, L&H, Bergman, Ealing, Coen Bros. etc.
Jul 11, 2015 @ 20:00:38
Annie Hall would definitely be in my list too along with:
Sideways
Some Like it Hot
Broken Flowers
The Triplets of Belleville
Election
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
L’auberge espagnole
Léon
American Beauty
Like Jonathan, I would probably choose a completely different selection if you asked me tomorrow…
Jul 11, 2015 @ 20:03:27
Some great choices! The Third Man is my all-time favourite film, I never tire of it.
Jul 11, 2015 @ 20:15:53
My top ten would be so different from yours, Stu!
Not ten, but included are Bladerunner, Capricorn One, What’s Up Doc?, Altered States and Somewhere in Time.
Jul 11, 2015 @ 20:42:39
My favourites from your list, Stu, are ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Amelie’. I never see the attraction of ‘Citizen Kane’ though.
Jul 11, 2015 @ 20:45:33
As others have said, it’s hard to pick ten and my choices might change if you asked me again tomorrow. Here goes:
The Apartment (Billy Wilder)
Double Indemnity
In a Lonely Place
Casablanca
All About Eve
Rififi
In the Mood for Love
Jackie Brown
Fargo
Manhattan Murder Mystery (interchangeable w/ several others by Woody Allen)
Jul 11, 2015 @ 21:47:07
I concur on Wings of Desire, one of my favourites.
Most of my favourites are foreign language:
The Lives of Others /German (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia/Turkish (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Atanarjuat/Inuit (Zacharias Kunuk)
The trailer for Atanarjuat as many might not know it:
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3887530265
Hard to pick a favourite Kurosawa, maybe Ran or Seven Samurai
The 1919 silent film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
Jul 12, 2015 @ 01:01:06
My father took me to see The Third Man (it was his favorite film) at an age when pretty much all I’d seen before it were things like Snow White and The Sound of Music. I was awestruck. It was as though I’d discovered the existence of an entire separate universe. In a sense I had.
Some favorites:
Amarcord
Topkapi
They All Laughed
Manhattan
L’Avventura
Lawrence of Arabia
PlayTime
Vertigo
The Philadelphia Story
Spirited Away
Jul 12, 2015 @ 01:18:23
Muy list would be quite similar to that of JacquiWine above with ‘The Apartment’ and ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ my two all-time favorites. Just recently I watched ‘The Shop Around the Corner’, and that movie would go on my list also.
Jul 12, 2015 @ 03:18:08
I don’t have a top ten but more of a favorites list and the movies on it, I tend to re-watch them on occasion:
The Royal Tenenbaums (well, I’m a big Wes Anderson fan)
North by Northwest with Cary Grant (newly watched and watched twice already)
Come Back Little Sheba with Burt Lancaster
One False Move (great suspense, smart police procedural)
The Lives of Others
The Remains of the Day
The Secret Garden (1993 version)
The Joy Luck Club
Ed Wood
The Godfather I and II
Jul 12, 2015 @ 03:59:19
I’m usually too busy reading to go the pictures, but I’ve seen some of the ones you’ve listed here and I’d agree that these are top films:
The Third Man
Annie Hall
The English Patient.
I liked The Lives of Others and Downfall too, and I recently saw a French film called Diplomatie which I thought was very good, also one called The Lemon Tree – I can’t remember whether it was a Palestinian or an Israeli film – which is a good measure of how even-handed it is.
Jul 12, 2015 @ 07:52:43
Why wasn’t it a list of your top ten films ‘in translation’ Stu?
Jul 12, 2015 @ 10:11:53
What a great selection of films! For some bizarre reason I prefer lighter films like Shrek or The Lego Movie (weird when I like my books so dark!) but of the more serious films my favourites are:
Manon des Source
Untouchable
The Lives of Others
and everything from Studio Ghibli!
Jul 12, 2015 @ 10:39:35
What a great selection and I love everyone else’s picks too.
Mine would include:
Excalibur
The Blues Brothers
A Wes Anderson, but not sure which one
Witness
Monsters Inc
Pulp Fiction or Res Dogs – again not sure which.
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Great Escape
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
O Brother Where Art Thou or Miller’s Crossing – gotta have the Coens in there.
Jul 12, 2015 @ 11:49:57
Annie Hall, The Third Man, Citizen Kane and The English Patient all make my list too. I would also add: Brazil; Andrei Rublyov; Three Colours: Blue; a Hitchcock one but not sure whether Vertigo, North by North West or Psycho; Rocky Horror Picture Show (my moment of emancipation); and can’t decide between Rififi, Some Like It Hot and West Side Story.
Jul 12, 2015 @ 12:01:35
Coming p with a top ten will require some thinking time but for now some of my favourites are:
English Patient
North by Northwest
Remains pf the Day
Shadowlands ( the one about CSLewis)
Educating Rita
It so interesting, to me at least, that two of these are adaptations of Booker Prize winners and two have a connection to literature ( the last two on the list)
Jul 12, 2015 @ 12:56:53
What an interesting Top 10 – thanks for that.
I picked a Top 10 on my blog a few years ago, and I think I still stand by my choices.
They are: City Lights, Sons of the Desert, A Night at the Opera, Citizen Kane, Double Indemnity, They Were Expendable, Seven Samurai, The Apu Trilogy, The Innocents, Fanny and Alexander.
I write a bit about them here: https://argumentativeoldgit.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/my-favourite-films/
Jul 12, 2015 @ 15:32:03
Saw The Third Man last week.
It was strangely hypnotic.
Jody
Jul 13, 2015 @ 10:15:00
Mine would be The Third Man, Casablanca, All About Eve,La Cage aux Folles,Some Like it Hot, North by North West, Notorious, Hannah and her Sisters, Blues Brothers and Sideways. Third Man is my all time favourite. I can watch it over and over…….
Jul 16, 2015 @ 08:15:41
There are so many outstanding films, Stu – difficult to have a list of ten only. My personal choice:
Yasujiro Ozu: Tokyo Story
Akira Kurosawa: Dode’s-kaden
Robert Bresson; Balthasar
Louis Malle: Elevator to the Gallows
Ingmar Bergman: Wild Strawberries
Aki Kaurismaki: The Match Factory Girl
Fritz Lang: M
Andrey Tarkovski: Stalker
Andrey Tarkovski: The Mirror
Thomas Brasch: Angels of Iron
Javor Gardev: Dzift
Jul 16, 2015 @ 09:08:05
By the way, Stu, there is a connection between Wings of Desire (on your list) and Casablanca (on the list of many of the readers). The pickpocket in Casablanca is the same actor as the old poet in Wings of Desire, Curt Bois. He acted in his first movie in 1907 and made his final film appearance in 1987.