Tuesday, February 17, 2009

100 Desert-Island Movies

Here's the situation: I am shipwrecked on a temperate deserted island with a 52" plasma tv, a state-of-the-art blue-ray player, and an unlimited supply of power from the native coconuts, all of which have mutated to mature with electric outlets on their sides and cold fusion within. By an extraordinary chance, I took the care to pack 100 of my favorite movies into a waterproof container that just happens to wash up next to the air conditioner, Laz-E-Boy, and well-thumbed copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide To Training Monkey Butlers To Cater To Your Every Whim. But which movies could I watch and rewatch until my rescue, which may well be years hence? What's in the bag?

Glad you asked! Here's my 100 flicks for the desert island. I made a similar list a few years ago, but times have changed, and so has my bag o' flicks.

3 Women (Altman, 1977)
8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959)
A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1957)
Amarcord (Fellini, 1973)
Aguirre, Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)
Au Hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966)
Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
Badlands (Malick, 1973)
Band of Outsiders (Godard, 1964)
The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1965)
The Big Lebowski (Coen, 1998)
The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946)
Blue Velvet (Lynch, 1986)
Bob Le Flambeur (Melville, 1955)
Boudu Saved From Drowning (Renoir, 1932)
Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah, 1974)
Burden of Dreams (Blank, 1982)
Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)
Children of Men (Cuaron, 2006)
Cockfighter (Hellman, 1974)
Days of Heaven (Malick, 1978)
Dead Man (Jarmusch, 1995)
Deliverance (Boorman, 1972)
Diabolique (Clouzot, 1954)
Duck Soup (McCarey, 1933)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
F For Fake (Welles, 1976)
The General (Keaton, 1927)
Gerry (Van Sant, 2002)
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (Jarmusch, 2000)
The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
The Godfather Part II (Coppola, 1974)
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (Leone, 1966)
Gosford Park (Altman, 2001)
The Grand Illusion (Renoir, 1938)
Grizzly Man (Herzog, 2005)
High and Low (Kurosawa, 1963)
His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940)
Human Resources (Cantet, 1999)
Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952)
I'm Not There (Haynes, 2007)
The Incredibles (Bird, 2004)
The Iron Giant (Bird, 1999)
Junior Bonner (Peckinpah, 1972)
Killer of Sheep (Burnett, 1977)
La Jetee (Marker, 1962)
L'Atalante (Vigo, 1934)
L'Avventura (Antonioni, 1960)
The Lady Eve (Sturges, 1941)
Little Dieter Needs To Fly (Herzog, 1997)
The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973)
M (Lang, 1931)
The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (Ford, 1962)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Weir, 2003)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971)
Miller's Crossing (Coen, 1990)
Mon Oncle (Tati, 1958)
My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki, 1988)
The New World (Malick, 2005)
Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955)
No Country For Old Men (Coen, 2007)
Nosferatu (Murnau, 1929)
On the Waterfront (Kazan, 1954)
Once Upon A Time In the West (Leone, 1968)
Pennies From Heaven (Ross, 1981)
Pierrot Le Fou (Godard, 1965)
Playtime (Tati, 1967)
Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997)
Ran (Kurosawa, 1985)
Ratatouille (Bird, 2007)
Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)
Ride The High Country (Peckinpah, 1962)
Rio Bravo (Hawks, 1959)
Rivers and Tides (Riedelsheimer, 2001)
The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939)
Sans Soliel (Marker, 1983)
The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)
Singin' In The Rain (Donen, 1952)
Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2002)
Stagecoach (Ford, 1939)
The Straight Story (Lynch, 1999)
Straw Dogs (Peckinpah, 1971)
Sullivan's Travels (Sturges, 1942)
Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
Taxi Driver (Scorcese, 1976)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Lang, 1933)
There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007)
Thieves Like Us (Altman, 1974)
The Third Man (Reed, 1949)
Touch of Evil (Welles, 1958)
Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellman, 1971)
Unfaithfully Yours (Sturges, 1948)
Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
Week End (Godard, 1967)
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)
Yojimbo (Kurosawa, 1961)
Young Frankenstein (Brooks, 1974)

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First edit: I somehow left off Ikiru, so that's going on and Throne of Blood is coming off. Also missing: The Shop Around The Corner, Los Angeles Plays Itself, Topsy-Turvy, The Man Who Would Be King, and Zero For Conduct.

1 comments:

Steve 11:23 PM, April 04, 2015  

I've got to copy your list and start finding them. Looks like we've got similar taste.

Not always, though. The first two films, in fact, I didn't like at all. But guess that's life. We each see it with our own set of eyes.

May I offer in return my own list: http://www.stevenkohn.net/DesertedIslandMovies/kohn's_deserted_island_movies.htm

Here's to our continued enjoyment.

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