Since the AFI list has come out, I have been thinking that I should at least put forward my suggestions. What I have done is come up with an incomplete list of directors and their films. My intention is to suggest them, this is by no means definitive. It is not definitive because
- some of these films I haven’t seen for a long time,
- my mind changes a lot,
- I’m sure I have forgotten somebody or many movies,
- it is very difficult to pick movies by country when various people involved are from different countries,
- I have not seen everything, so some things won’t be on here.
There are no movies by David Lean or Carol Reed on this list, for example. There are other ones that you may say: “that’s not an American movie!”
Looking over it, I already have problems. But at least I am trying.
Under “1)” are musts, under “2)” are hopefuls
Robert Aldrich:
1) Kiss Me Deadly
2) none
Robert Altman:
1) MASH, The Long Goodbye, Nashville, A Wedding, the Player
2) McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Short Cuts
Woody Allen:
1) Crimes and Misdemeanors
2) Interiors, Hannah and her Sisters
P.T. Anderson:
1) Punch-Drunk Love
2) Magnolia
Wes Anderson:
1) none
2) Rushmore
Peter Bogdanovich:
1) The Last Picture Show
2) none
John Boorman:
1) Point Blank
2) Deliverance
(note: my favourite Boorman film, the General, is in no way American)
Antonia Bird:
1) none
2) Ravenous
Tim Burton:
1) Ed Woood
2) none
John Carpenter:
1) The Thing
2) Big Trouble in Little China
Charlie Chaplin:
1) The Gold Rush, Modern Times
2) none
Bob Clark:
1) A Christmas Story
2) none
The Coen Brothers:
1) Rasing Arizona, Fargo
2) Blood Simple, Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?
Francis Coppola:
1) The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now Redux
2) Rumble Fish
Costa-Gavras:
1) Missing
2) none
Alex Cox:
1) Repo Man
2) none
Joe Dante:
1) none
2) Gremlins, Gremlins 2: the New Batch
Johnathan Demme:
1) The Silence of the Lambs
2) none
Clint Eastwood:
1) Unforgiven
2) White Hunter Black Heart, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby
Blake Edwards:
1) none
2) A Shot in the Dark
David Fincher:
1) Se7en
2) Fight Club
John Ford:
1) Stagecoach, The Searchers
2) none
John Frankenheimer:
1) The Manchurian Candidate, Seconds
2) Seven Days in May
William Friedkin:
1) The French Connection, The Exorcist
2) none
Samuel Fuller:
1) none
2) The Big Red One: a Reconstruction
Terry Gilliam:
1) Brazil
2) 12 Monkeys
Todd Haynes:
1) none
2) Safe
George Roy Hill
1) The Sting
2) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Alfred Hitchcock
1) Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho
2) Rear Window, Rope
Tobe Hooper:
1) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2) none
John Huston:
1) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Beat the Devil
2) The Asphalt Jungle
Andrew Jarecki:
1) Capturing the Friedmans
2) none
Jim Jarmusch:
1) Dead Man
2) none
Roland Joffe:
1) The Killing Fields
2) none
Elia Kazan:
1) On the Waterfront
2) Panic in the Streets
Stanley Kubrick
1) Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket
2) The Killing, Paths of Glory, Barry Lyndon, The Shinning
Fritz Lang:
1) none
2) The Big Heat
Charles Laughton:
1) Night of the Hunter
2) none
Spike Lee:
1) Do the Right Thing
2) none
Sydney Lumet:
1) The Pawnbroker, Network
2) Dog Day Afternoon
David Lynch:
1) Eraserhead, Blue Velvet
2) Lost Highway, Mullholand Drive
Terrence Mallick:
1) Days of Heaven
2) Badlands, The Thin Red Line
Michael Mann:
1) none
2) The Last of the Mohicans
John McNaughton:
1) Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
2) none
Sam Mendes:
1) none
2) American Beauty, Jarhead
Errol Morris:
1) none
2) The Thin Blue Line, the Fog of War
Mike Nichols:
1) The Graduate
2) none
Christopher Nolan:
1) none
2) Memento
Alan Pakula
1) The Parallax View, All the President’s Men
2) none
Trey Parker:
1) South Park, Team America
2) none
Sam Peckinpah:
1) Ride the High Country, the Wild Bunch
2) The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Straw Dogs, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Cross of Iron
Arthur Penn:
1) Bonnie and Clyde, the Missouri Breaks
2) The Chase
Roman Polanski:
1) Chinatown
2) Rosemary’s Baby
Otto Preminger:
1) Anatomy of a Murder
2) Bunny Lake is Missing
Nicholas Ray:
1) none
2) Rebel Without a Cause
Rob Reiner:
1) This is Spinal Tap
2) Stand by Me, the Princess Bride
Robert Rodriguez:
1) none
2) Sin City, Grindhouse
George Romero:
1) none
2) Night of the Living Dead
Martin Scorsese:
1) Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, the Age of Innocence
2) Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More, the Last Waltz
Don Siegel:
1) Invasion of the Body Snatchers
2) Dirty Harry
Bryan Singer:
1) none
2) The Usual Suspects
Robert Siodmak:
1) none
2) The Killers
Steven Soderbergh:
1) none
2) Kafka, The Limey
Steven Spielberg:
1) none
2) Raiders of the Lost Arc
Oliver Stone:
1) Platoon, JFK
2) Salvador
John Sturges:
1) Bad Day at Black Rock
2) none
Quentin Tarantino:
1) Pulp Fiction
2) Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, Grindhouse
Peter Weir:
1) The Mosquito Coast
2) Witness
Orson Welles:
1) Citizen Kane, The Lady From Shanghai, Touch of Evil
2) none
William Wellman:
1) The Ox-Bow Incident
2) none
James Whale:
1) none
2) The Bride of Frankenstein
Billy Wilder:
1) Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd.
2) none
William Wyler:
1) none
2) The Best Years of Our Lives
Peter Yates:
1) none
2) Bullit
Fred Zinnerman:
1) High Noon
2) From Here to Eternity
I really don’t know if I like that list. One problem is that it is just American movies. I don’t like limiting things. I have excluded a couple recent films I really liked just for the sake of time…