With the new year upon us, everyone is making resolutions and goals that promote a healthier, more well-rounded lifestyle. Because I watch so many movies, I'm putting together a resolution that will focus my movie-viewing habits on something more substantial and deliberate. I'm planning on tearing through a list of directors who are considered by critics to be the greatest.
The blog Forrest In Focus has pulled data from the Sight & Sound critics poll and has compiled a ranked list of the top 25 directors of all time. Some of these guys I know well; I often consider Scorsese my personal all-time favorite director. Others are new to me; I've never even heard of Mizoguchi or any of his films (directors denoted with an asterisk are ones that will be watching for the first time). Though for every director on this list there are at least a couple films I haven't seen.
The works I've selected form each director is based on personal interest and availability, with films taking precedence that actually made the the Sight & Sound list, or that have been included in The Criterion Collection. For some, I couldn't decide on one just yet (suggestions are welcome).
So, for the year of 2015, the films I'm aiming to cross off that list are:
1. Hitchcock – The Lady Vanishes
2. Godard - Contempt / Goodbye to Language
3. Welles - The Magnificent Ambersons / F for Fake
4. Ozu - Tokyo Story / Autumn Afternoon
5. Renoir* - Rules of the Game
6. Ford - Stagecoach / Young Mr. Lincoln
6. Dreyer - The Passion of Joan of Ark
8. Kubrick - The Killing
9. Tarkovsky - Ivan's Childhood
10. Bresson* - Pickpocket
11. Coppola - The Conversation
12. Bergman - Cries & Whispers / Through a Glass Darkly / The Seventh Seal
13. Murnau* - Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
14. Fellini - Fellini Satyricon
15. Kurosawa - The Bad Sleep Well
16. Bunuel* - Belle De Jour
17. Antonioni - L'avventura
18. Chaplin - The Great Dictator
19. Scorsese - Age of Innocence
20. Lynch - Lost Highway
21. Lang - M
22. [TIE] Eisenstein* - Alexander Nevsky
[TIE] Hawks - Red River
23. Mizoguchi *- Ugetsu
24. Powell, Pressburger - A Matter of Life and Death
25. Rossellini - Rome, Open City
To follow my progress, and to check out everything else I'm watching, check out my Letterboxd page.
