A Top 100 Films of All-Time

It is time once again for a Top 100 Films of All-Time list. As I’ve done for the last few years, the first ten spots on the list comprise a hypothetical Sight & Sound-style ballot. We had an on-going project related to this on The George Sanders Show, that is now based at Seattle Screen Scene. This top ten is presented here in chronological order. The remaining 90 films were randomly selected from a consideration set of 402 films, which excluded films that made my Top Tens in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

  1. The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940)
  2. Mughal-e-azam (K. Asif, 1960)
  3. Yearning (Naruse Mikio, 1964)
  4. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (Bill Melendez, 1966)
  5. Night of the Living Dead (George Romero, 1968)
  6. The Terrorizers (Edward Yang, 1986)
  7. Om Shanti Om (Farrah Khan, 2007)
  8. Dusty Stacks of Mom (Jodie Mack, 2013)
  9. The Midnight After (Fruit Chan, 2014)
  10. Liz and the Blue Bird (Yamada Naoko, 2018)



  11. Steamboat Bill, Jr (Charles Resiner, 1928)
  12. Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)
  13. Miller’s Crossing (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1990)
  14. The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925)
  15. Safety Last! (Sam Taylor & Fred C. Newmeyer, 1923)
  16. Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998)
  17. Dirty Ho (Lau Kar-leung, 1979)
  18. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
  19. The Last Waltz (Martin Scorsese, 1978)
  20. The Day He Arrives (Hong Sangsoo, 2011)



  21. Awaara (Raj Kapoor, 1951)
  22. Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943)
  23. Romancing in Thin Air (Johnnie To, 2012)
  24. 7 Women (John Ford, 1966)
  25. Sparrow (Johnnie To, 2008)
  26. Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936)
  27. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939)
  28. The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
  29. The Dawn Patrol (Howard Hawks, 1930)
  30. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)



  31. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
  32. Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019)
  33. Wagon Master (John Ford, 1950
  34. The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962)
  35. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent 1974)
  36. The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976)
  37. The Right Stuff (Philip Kaufman, 1983)
  38. School on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1988)
  39. Japanese Girls at the Harbor (Hiroshi Shimizu, 1933)
  40. A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946)



  41. Histoire(s) du cinèma (Jean-Luc Godard, 1998)
  42. Welcome to LA (Alan Rudolph, 1976)
  43. Choose Me (Alan Rudolph, 1984)
  44. Reds (Warren Beatty, 1981)
  45. My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)
  46. Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980)
  47. Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972)
  48. Fantasia (Ben Sharpsteen, et al, 1940)
  49. The Pan-American Exposition By Night (Edwin S. Porter, 1901)
  50. Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948)



  51. L’Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934)
  52. Sans soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)
  53. Sátántangó (Béla Tarr, 1994)
  54. All that Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979)
  55. New Rose Hotel (Abel Ferrara, 1998)
  56. Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman, 2016)
  57. Hanagatami (Obayashi Nobuhiko, 2017)
  58. Les amants du pont-neuf (Leos Carax, 1991)
  59. The Harder They Come (Perry Henzell, 1972)
  60. Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison, 2016)



  61. Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan, 1997)
  62. Three Times (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2005)
  63. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
  64. La danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (Frederick Wiseman, 2009)
  65. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
  66. Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman, 1985)
  67. How Green was My Valley (John Ford, 1941)
  68. Mahjong (Edward Yang, 1996)
  69. Pauline at the Beach (Eric Rohmer, 1983)
  70. Kid Auto Races at Venice (Henry Lehrman, 1914)



  71. Legend of the Mountain (King Hu, 1979)
  72. Maison du bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2017)
  73. The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
  74. My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai, 2002)
  75. Holiday (George Cukor, 1938)
  76. Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1974)
  77. Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
  78. Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971)
  79. The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941)
  80. It Felt Like a Kiss (Adam Curtis, 2009)



  81. 2046 (Wong Kar-wai, 2004)
  82. Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)
  83. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1939)
  84. Xiao Wu (Jia Zhangke, 1998)
  85. The History of the Seattle Mariners (Jon Bois, 2020)
  86. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Gore Verbinski, 2006)
  87. The Immigrant (Charles Chaplin, 1917)
  88. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)
  89. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)
  90. All that Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)



  91. Throw Down (Johnnie To, 2004)
  92. The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013)
  93. Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993)
  94. Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924)
  95. Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997)
  96. The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995)
  97. Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles, 1955)
  98. Design for Living (Ernst Lubitsch, 1933)
  99. Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas, 1996)
  100. Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942)

2 thoughts on “A Top 100 Films of All-Time”

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