MY TOP 20 FILMS |
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1. Time of the Gypsies (Dom za vesanje) (1988), Yugoslavia, directed by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. In this luminous tale set in the area around Sarajevo and in Italy, Perhan, an engaging young Romany (gypsy) with telekinetic powers, is seduced by the quick-cash world of petty crime, which threatens to destroy him and those he loves. |
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2. City of God (Cidade de Deus) (2002), Brazil, directed by Fernando Meirelles and co-directed by Kátia Lund. Two boys growing up in a violent neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro take different paths: one becomes a photographer, the other a drug dealer.
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3. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) (1975), controversial Italian drama film written and directed by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini with uncredited writing contributions by Pupi Avati. Four fascist libertines round up 9 teenager boys and 9 teenager girls and subject them to 120 days of physical, mental and sexual torture. |
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4. Underground (1995), Yugoslavia, award-winning film directed by Emir Kusturica with a screenplay by Dušan Kovačević. The story follows an underground weapons manufacturer in Belgrade during WWII and evolves into fairly surreal situations. A black marketeer who smuggles the weapons to partisans doesn't mention to the workers that the war is over, and they keep producing. Years later, they break out of their underground "shelter" -- only to convince themselves that the war is still going on. |
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5. Burnt Money (Plata quemada) (2000), Argentine film directed by Marcelo Piñeyro, and written by Piñeyro and Marcelo Figueras. Burnt Money, is set in Argentina in 1965. This true story follows the tumultuous relationship between two men who became lovers and ultimately ruthless bank robbers in a notoriously famous footnote in the annals of Argentinean crime history.
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6. 8½ (1963), Italian comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini, co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi. Guido is a film director, trying to relax after his last big hit. He can't get a moment's peace, however, with the people who have worked with him in the past constantly looking for more work. He wrestles with his conscience, but is unable to come up with a new idea. While thinking, he starts to recall major happenings in his life, and all the women he has loved and left. An autobiographical film of Fellini, about the trials and tribulations of film making. |
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7. Baise-moi (Rape Me) (2000), French film co-directed by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi. It is based on the novel by Despentes, first published in 1999. Two young women, marginalised by society, go on a destructive tour of sex and violence. Breaking norms and killing men - and shattering the complacency of polite cinema audiences. |
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8. Grey Gardens (1975), USA, documentary film by Albert and David Maysles, with Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer. An old mother and her middle-aged daughter, the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, live their eccentric lives in a filthy, decaying mansion in East Hampton. |
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9. Madame Satã (2002), Brazilian-French drama film directed by Karim Aïnouz. Loose portrait of João Francisco dos Santos, also known as Madame Satã, a sometime chef, transvestite, lover, father, hero and convict from Rio de Janeiro. |
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10. Savage Nights (Les nuits fauves) (1992), French drama film directed and written by Cyril Collard. It stars Collard, Romane Bohringer and Carlos López. The film is an adaptation of Collard's semi-autobiographical novel Les Nuits Fauves, published in 1989. Jean is young, gay, and promiscuous. Only after he meets one or two women, including Laura does he come to realize his bisexuality. Jean has to overcome a personal crisis (he is HIV-positive) and a tough choice between Laura and his male lover Samy. |
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11. Total Eclipse (1995), UK, France, Belgium, film directed by Agnieszka Holland, based on a 1967 play by Christopher Hampton, who also wrote the screenplay. The self-destructive relationship between 19th-century teenage French poet Arthur Rimbaud and his older mentor Paul Verlaine. |
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12. Carandiru (2003), Brazilian and Argentine film directed by Hector Babenco. It is based on the book Estação Carandiru by Dr. Drauzio Varella, a physician and AIDS specialist, who is portrayed in the film by Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos. Film based on real life experiences of doctor Drauzio Varella inside dreadful State penitentiary Carandiru, in São Paulo, Brazil, while he was doing a social work of AIDS prevention. There he found hundreds of convicts living under degrading conditions. The situation came to a climax in 1992, when in order to smother a rebellion, police force killed 111 men. |
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13. Three Dancing Slaves (Le Clan) (2004), French film directed by Gaël Morel. In the months after their mother has died, Marc is deeply troubled: he tries to stiff drug dealers and then plots revenge. Christophe is released from jail, lands a job, and must overcome various temptations in order to keep it. Olivier, nearing 18, may be falling in love with Hicham, a young man who constantly practices capoeira on the shores of the lake. Both violence and fraternity are close to the surface of most interactions. How each brother emerges from his challenge comprises the film's drama. Is there any way in which these men can be a family? |
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14. Requiem For a Dream (2000), USA, drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky. The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island individuals are shattered when their addictions become stronger. |
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15. The Class (Entre les murs) (2008), French drama film directed by Laurent Cantet. Its original French title is Entre les murs, which translates literally to "Between the walls". It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by François Bégaudeau. Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood. |
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16. Cabaret (1972), USA, musical film directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey. The film is set in Berlin during the Weimar Republic in 1931, under the ominous presence of the growing National Socialist Party. A female girlie club entertainer in Weimar Republic era Berlin romances two men while the Nazi Party rises to power around them. |
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17. Bagdad Café (1987), German film directed by Percy Adlon. The film is a comedy set in a remote truck-stop café and motel in the Mojave Desert. A lonely German woman ends up in the most desolated motel on earth and decides to make it brighter. |
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18. Half Nelson (2006), American drama film directed by Ryan Fleck, written by Anna Boden and Fleck. An inner-city junior high school teacher with a drug habit forms an unlikely friendship with one of his students after she discovers his secret. |
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19. The Mirror (Zerkalo) (1975) Soviet Union, directed by Andrey Tarkovsky. It could actually be any of Tarkovsky's films here. They are all equally powerful. The cinematography of Tarkovsky's films is breath taking. I should warn you that Tarkovsky's films require certain maturity. I disliked all of his films when I was in my 20s. Now I watch them with awe and adoration. If you see filmmaking as an art form, Tarkovsky is definitely for you. You probably want to check Stalker (1979), The Sacrifice (Offret) (1986), and Nostalghia (1983) out if The Mirror was not enough. (text by Ž.J.) |
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20. All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre) (1999), Spanish-French drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The film deals with complex issues such as AIDS, transvestitism, faith, and existentialism. Young Esteban want to become a writer and also to discover the identity of his father, carefully concealed by the mother Manuela. |