BFI top 100 Films
December 2, 2022 5:35 AM Subscribe

Once a decade, the British Film Institute polls thousands of critics and directors to determine the best film of all time. Here is the newly-released critics list from 2022. The greatest film of all time? Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles No other film made by a woman has ever reached the top 10.

NYTimes: Here’s everything you need to know about the film, including why it’s important and where you can watch.

Fondation Chantal Akerman: Three days in the life of a woman, a widow who lives with her teenage son, and who prostitutes herself at home in order to make ends meet.

Review from Rebecca Zorach, Art Historian: Akerman’s film is much more than a painstaking depiction of housework. It provides a commentary not only on women’s lives but also on film and its capabilities and fictions.

New Yorker: I'm Richard Brody and this clip is from Jeanne Dielman, a 1975 film directed by Chantal Akerman.

The full Top 10:
2. Vertigo
3. Citizen Kane
4. Tokyo Story
5. In the Mood for Love
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. Beau Travail
8. Mulholland Dr.
9. Man with a Movie Camera
10. Singin' in the Rain

posted by vacapinta (103 comments total) 34 users marked this as a favorite

I love Jeanne Dielman. I find it endlessly rewatchable; I get into a kind of flow state.
posted by theatro at 5:45 AM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]

I've liked other of Akerman's films (News from Home, Hotel Monterey) but have never finished Jeanne Dielman. I loved what I saw but I got pulled away and never got back to it; I should block out the time to watch all of it in one sitting.

I've seen 8 out of the top ten and keep meaning to watch Beau Travail. Looking at the Letterboxd list that someone posted, I've seen 77 out of the 100 in this year's list.
posted by octothorpe at 5:50 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

On FanFare.
posted by brainwane at 6:02 AM on December 2, 2022

Beau Travail is a masterpiece, utterly brilliant. i should rewatch it again and again. It’s one of the most beautiful films i’ve ever seen. i too started and did not finish Jeanne Dielman, it’s very long and very slow. i wish i could see it in a theater so i would be free of distractions. I’m fascinated by its sudden surge to the top, which i don’t doubt it deserves but it’s interesting to see a movie that i think many people did not know about until after the retrospectives upon Ackermans recent death suddenly get reevaluated. it’s promising in a way, that the changing generations can still acknowledge Citizen Kane but incorporate new critical attitudes.

Shocked by the lack of Howard Hawks films.

Has anyone ever actually watched all of satantango? (love the book).

Am i the only person into fancy pants film who is unimpressed with godard? there are too many of his movies on here.

Drop some godard for the Apu trilogy by Satyajit Ray and Kieslowski’s Bleu, come on.

Glad to see Yi Yi on there, i haven’t stopped thinking about that movie since i first watched it. incredibly moving
posted by dis_integration at 6:14 AM on December 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

95. Get Out (2017 USA, Japan) Jordan Peele
95. The General (1926 USA) Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman
95. Black Girl (1965 Senegal, France) Ousmane Sembène
95. Tropical Malady (2004 France, Thailand, Germany, Italy, Switzerland) Apichatpong Weerasethakul
95. Once upon a Time in the West (1968 Italy, USA) Sergio Leone
95. A Man Escaped (1956 France) Robert Bresson
90. Madame de... (1953 France, Italy) Max Ophuls
90. The Leopard (1963 Italy, France) Luchino Visconti
90. Ugetsu Monogatari (1953 Japan) Kenji Mizoguchi
90. Yi Yi (1999 Taiwan, Japan) Edward Yang
90. Parasite (2019 Republic of Korea) Bong Joon-ho
88. CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994 Hong Kong) Wong Kar Wai
88. The Shining (1980 USA, United Kingdom) Stanley Kubrick
84. Histoire(s) du Cinéma (1988 France, Switzerland) Jean-Luc Godard
84. Pierrot le fou (1965 France, Italy) Jean-Luc Godard
84. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973 Spain) Víctor Erice
84. Blue Velvet (1986 USA) David Lynch
78. Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974 France) Jacques Rivette
78. A Matter of Life and Death (1946 United Kingdom) Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
78. Modern Times (1936 USA) Charles Chaplin
78. A Brighter Summer Day (1991 Taiwan) Edward Yang
78. Sátántangó (1994 Hungary, Germany, Switzerland) Béla Tarr
78. Sunset Blvd. (1950 USA) Billy Wilder
75. Sansho the Bailiff (1954 Japan) Kenji Mizoguchi
75. Imitation of Life (1959 USA) Douglas Sirk
75. Spirited Away (2001 Japan) Hayao Miyazaki
72. My Neighbour Totoro (1988 Japan) Hayao Miyazaki
72. Journey to Italy (1954 Italy, France) Roberto Rossellini
72. L'avventura (1960 Italy, France) Michelangelo Antonioni
67. Metropolis (1927 Germany) Fritz Lang
67. The Gleaners and I (2000 France) Agnès Varda
67. The Red Shoes (1948 United Kingdom) Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
67. La Jetée (1962 France) Chris Marker
67. Andrei Rublev (1966 USSR) Andrei Tarkovsky
66. Touki Bouki (1973 Senegal) Djibril Diop Mambéty
63. Casablanca (1942 USA) Michael Curtiz
63. The Third Man (1949 United Kingdom) Carol Reed
63. GoodFellas (1990 USA) Martin Scorsese
60. Daughters of the Dust (1991 USA) Julie Dash
60. Moonlight (2016 USA) Barry Jenkins
60. La dolce vita (1960 Italy, France) Federico Fellini
59. Sans Soleil (1982 France) Chris Marker
54. Sherlock Jr. (1924 USA) Buster Keaton
54. The Apartment (1960 USA) Billy Wilder
54. Battleship Potemkin (1925 USSR) Sergei M. Eisenstein
54. Blade Runner (1982 USA, Hong Kong) Ridley Scott
54. Le Mépris (1963 France, Italy) Jean-Luc Godard
52. News from Home (1976 France, Belgium) Chantal Akerman
52. Fear Eats the Soul (1974 Federal Republic of Germany) Rainer Werner Fassbinder
50. The Piano (1992 Australia, France) Jane Campion
50. The 400 Blows (1959 France) François Truffaut
48. Wanda (1970 USA) Barbara Loden
48. Ordet (1955 Denmark) Carl Th. Dreyer
45. North by Northwest (1959 USA) Alfred Hitchcock
45. The Battle of Algiers (1966 Italy, Algeria) Gillo Pontecorvo
45. Barry Lyndon (1975 USA, United Kingdom) Stanley Kubrick
43. Killer of Sheep (1977 USA) Charles Burnett
43. Stalker (1979 USSR) Andrei Tarkovsky
41. Rashomon (1950 Japan) Akira Kurosawa
41. Bicycle Thieves (1948 Italy) Vittorio De Sica
38. Rear Window (1954 USA) Alfred Hitchcock
38. Some Like It Hot (1959 USA) Billy Wilder
38. À bout de souffle (1960 France) Jean-Luc Godard
36. M (1931 Germany) Fritz Lang
36. City Lights (1931 USA) Charles Chaplin
35. Pather Panchali (1955 India) Satyajit Ray
34. L'Atalante (1934 France) Jean Vigo
31. Psycho (1960 USA) Alfred Hitchcock
31. Mirror (1975 USSR) Andrei Tarkovsky
31. 8½ (1963 Italy, France) Federico Fellini
30. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019 France) Céline Sciamma
29. Taxi Driver (1976 USA) Martin Scorsese
28. Daisies (1966 Czechoslovakia) Věra Chytilová
27. Shoah (1985 France) Claude Lanzmann
25. The Night of the Hunter (1955 USA) Charles Laughton
25. Au hasard Balthazar (1966 France, Sweden) Robert Bresson
24. Do the Right Thing (1989 USA) Spike Lee
23. Playtime (1967 France) Jacques Tati
21. Late Spring (1949 Japan) Yasujirō Ozu
21. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1927 France) Carl Th. Dreyer
20. Seven Samurai (1954 Japan) Akira Kurosawa
19. Apocalypse Now (1979 USA) Francis Ford Coppola
18. Persona (1966 Sweden) Ingmar Bergman
17. Close-up (1989 Iran) Abbas Kiarostami
16. Meshes of the Afternoon (1943 USA) Maya Deren, Alexander Hackenschmied
15. The Searchers (1956 USA) John Ford
14. Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962 France, Italy) Agnès Varda
13. La Règle du jeu (1939 France) Jean Renoir
12. The Godfather (1972 USA) Francis Ford Coppola
11. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927 USA) F.W. Murnau
10. Singin' in the Rain (1951 USA) Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen
9. Man with a Movie Camera (1929 USSR) Dziga Vertov
8. Mulholland Dr. (2001 France, USA) David Lynch
7. Beau travail (1998 France) Claire Denis
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 USA, United Kingdom) Stanley Kubrick
5. In the Mood for Love (2000 Hong Kong, France) Wong Kar Wai
4. Tokyo Story (1953 Japan) Yasujirō Ozu
3. Citizen Kane (1941 USA) Orson Welles
2. Vertigo (1958 USA) Alfred Hitchcock
1. Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975 Belgium, France) Chantal Akerman
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:32 AM on December 2, 2022 [11 favorites]

I feel weird about seeing Parasite or Get Out on there. Not that they aren't great but putting films on the list before they've have a chance to sink in for a few decades seems wrong to me.
posted by octothorpe at 6:44 AM on December 2, 2022 [10 favorites]

maybe more olmi?
posted by kliuless at 6:48 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

i see they did get Panther Panchali on there, still, too much Godard. What about Kaurismaki? Godard just ain’t all that!
posted by dis_integration at 6:56 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

maybe more olmi?

I saw Tree of Wooden Clogs in the theater when it came out! I was like 13 and my artsy aunt and uncle took me and then both promptly fell asleep. I loved it but I was a weird kid.
posted by octothorpe at 6:56 AM on December 2, 2022

*settles in* I got some quick-and-dirty responses for some of these - feel free to skip my next few comments if you don't got the time. (anyone who wants to hear longer yammering about a particular film, memail me and I'll shoot you a blog link to that review).

Heads up first of all: If anyone is confused, as I was, that the "last thing on the list" is number 95; it looks like there are some five-way ties in the bottom spots for some reason. That's fair.

95. The General - I fell in love with Buster Keaton when I first started watching his films - and this was a film that almost made me fall OUT of love. Not that Keaton had any way of knowing how opinions would turn against the Confederate Army today...but still.

95. A Man Escaped ...It's a great escape film, but I wanted to know more about the guy who was trying to escape.

90. Madame de... Technically good. It bugged me, though, that they tied themselves in knots trying to obscure Madame's last name (this was a thing they did in the novel this was based on, and it wasn't necessary for the movie - but they did it anyway and it felt too gimmicky).

90. The Leopard Oh Lord, this was dull. The whole last half hour is Burt Lancaster being a moody wallflower at a ball and feeling depressed about his Genteel Way Of Life That Is Ending, but throughout the whole preceding rest of the movie he has ample chances to take action against what's happening and just can't be arsed to. So if he doesn't care enough about it, why should we?

78. A Matter of Life and Death There is some bonkers stuff in this film, and somehow it still works. (If you've seen the last scene of Captain America, where Steve is talking to Peggy as his plane goes down, you've seen the first scene of this film - MCU did a direct homage.)

78. Modern Times Probably the Chaplin film I liked best. Lots of people point to the caught-in-the-gears scene or the roller-skating scene as standout scenes - I preferred the bit where he was testing this automatic-lunch-feeding machine that goes haywire when he's strapped into it.

78. Sunset Blvd. Yeah, it's every bit as good as you've heard.

(To be continued.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:05 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I feel weird about seeing Parasite or Get Out on there. Not that they aren't great but putting films on the list before they've have a chance to sink in for a few decades seems wrong to me.

Overrotating on recency is a perpetual problem with lists like this but seeing underrepresented filmmakers benefit from it seems like a net good.
posted by mhoye at 7:07 AM on December 2, 2022 [9 favorites]

I also though that Us was much better than Get Out but I'm in a small group with that opinion.
posted by octothorpe at 7:11 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

The Godfather belongs on a list like this, but Goodfellas doesn't.

(Also, Scorsese aside, this is a pretty ... genteel, I guess, list? "Is this movie _really_ better than Fury Road?" is a question I found myself wondering a lot.)
posted by mhoye at 7:12 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Does anyone know how the mechanics of the poll work? They get ballots from 1,639 critics but how do they collate those into a list of 100?
posted by octothorpe at 7:16 AM on December 2, 2022

I was pleasantly surprised to Maya Deren so high on the list.
posted by phooky at 7:17 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Going on! I'm stopping myself from giving a hot take on every film I've seen, don't worry.

75. Sansho the Bailiff - this felt weirdly....Dickensian? It kept reminding me of David Copperfield or Great Expectations and I'm not sure why. Maybe the twists of fate or the sympathy for people with hard luck.

72. Journey to Italy - there is a Happy Hollywood Ending, but what surprised me is when it happened (within the last three minutes of the film). That late-coming ending lead me to distrust it - and even my roommate, who'd not even been watching but had only been half-listening from his room as I watched the DVD, poked his head out to say that he didn't buy it either.

72. L'avventura - Yes, I think it makes sense to have one of Antonioni's "society is making us all indifferent" films in here, but I thing La Notte might have been a better choice.

67. The Red Shoes - I have a feeling that the people who really will go in for this are people who have worked, or tried to work, in the arts for any length of time. It's technically gorgeous enough for anyone to enjoy on those merits, but people who tried to be actors or dancers or painters or etc. are going to get it on a gut level.

63. Casablanca - I remember years ago there was a 60 Minutes piece about this film, exploring the possibility that it was The Best Film Ever. I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's pretty damn good. And The Marcellaise scene still kicks ass.

54. Sherlock Jr. - that dream sequence, especially the bit where Keaton is getting shuttled between different locations, is a masterpiece of special effects.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:18 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Neat list. I'm a bit surprised how many of the films I haven't even heard of.

I've seen 23 of these films out of 100, and agree that most of those films deserve to be on this list. (I don't love the Godfather, but understand why others do.) But Mulholland Dr. in the top 10? Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it - but one of the top ten movies of all time?

Thrilled to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire on here, which is just an absolute stunning movie.

I should watch Vertigo again. It's not the Hitchcock film I repeatedly come back to (that's Rear Window or Rebecca), so I'd like to understand why it is almost universally considered Hitchcock's masterpiece. I remember enjoying it, but it's probably been 20 years since I last saw it.

Also thrilled to see some Miyazaki on here. <3
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:21 AM on December 2, 2022

Does anyone know how the mechanics of the poll work?

From NYT article about the poll: To create the list, five Sight and Sound editors and associates asked respondents to select what they considered to be the 10 greatest films of all time, with the definition of “greatness” left to the respondent’s discretion. The lists were unranked — each of the 10 films received one vote. The editors then used software to rank all submitted films by the total number of votes.

"Software" presumably means an Excel spreadsheet. I can't imagine that the software added further spin to the rankings.
posted by beagle at 7:24 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Does anyone know how the mechanics of the poll work? They get ballots from 1,639 critics but how do they collate those into a list of 100?

My understanding is that each of the 1,639 people rank their top ten movies, and then BFI makes this list depending on how many ballots a particular film appeared on.

I assume there must also be some kind of point allocation for how a film is ranked on a ballot. That is, I would expect a film that is ranked No. 1 on 400 ballots to be ranked higher in the final list than a film that is ranked No. 10 on 600 ballots.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:24 AM on December 2, 2022

The lists were unranked — each of the 10 films received one vote.

Oops. Thanks beagle. :)
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:25 AM on December 2, 2022

The Godfather belongs on a list like this, but Goodfellas doesn't.

I would go with Age of Innocence before any other Scorsese.
posted by octothorpe at 7:26 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is an incredible film. Hypnotic and beautiful. One of the reviewers said "Film language reached such exciting heights in the hands of Lang, Murnau and other silent expressionists, it’s almost a shame that sound came along" and I agree with that sentiment.
posted by vacapinta at 7:28 AM on December 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

41. Bicycle Thieves - This broke my heart; I had a breakin once when I was less financially well-off, and I remembered that day when I was also futilely going around to pawn shops in my neighborhood to see if just maybe someone had tried to sell my missing laptop there. It just felt so helpless, but at least I was doing something.

38. À bout de souffle - Oh God, this. There was a long scene in the middle where the main characters are idly talking after a hookup and I spent the whole time sitting there thinking "oh my god would something just please happen already."

36. M - this was fun. Especially if you've ever been a fan of Law and Order or any other police procedurals.

34. L'Atalante Somehow the romantic leads in this film managed to be intimate without you ever seeing a sex scene. Their chemistry is fantastic.

31. Psycho So - I didn't see this film until earlier this year. But I had already been well spoiled - not only because it gets discussed a lot, but also because in the 80s it had some really half-assed sequels, and I heard all about them when they were in the theaters. I think I missed something by not having been surprised, but don't know how I could have avoided spoilers all this time.

28. Daisies - Oh, this is a fun one! This is a surrealist Czech film that was restored and re-released two months ago; two young women who bumble along treating the whole world like a giant cocktail party just for them. On paper it sounds like they're utter brats, but somehow on film they come across as free-spirited and fun and plucky. And there is some really fun visual imagery in it that suits the whole thing. ....I saw it in a theater, and was sitting in front of a group of friends who thoroughly enjoyed it, laughing out loud at several moments - and when the film ended, one of them memorably quipped, "That was like, Intrusive Thoughts, The Movie!" If there's a chance you can still see it in a theater, do so.

25. The Night of the Hunter - HOLY CRAP this was good. Charles Laughton should have gotten way more work as a director because what a unique vision he had.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:34 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

No other film made by a woman has ever reached the top 10.

Wait, the BFI editor should have caught this. #7 (Beau Travail) was directed by Claire Denis.
posted by trig at 7:39 AM on December 2, 2022

28. Daisies - Oh, this is a fun one!

My wife saw this in a feminist cinema class in college in the 90s, and we managed to find a DVD copy many years ago. It's utterly delightful, and you can feel the liberation in ever moment.

This is the absolute best scene.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:41 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Anyone interested in film rankings might enjoy They Shoot Pictures, Don't They. The website's main feature is a list of the 1,000 most acclaimed films of all time. The full list of more than 20,000 films is also online and sortable.
posted by NotLost at 7:43 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

There was a time, long ago, such a list would have made small fiercekitten determined to see the entire list. I think in honor of the weird, cinema child I was I'll have a go at this list. After all, I have a decade before they make a new one.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:47 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

I had the privilege of seeing Jeanne Dielman in a theater once, and it was single-handedly the most transcendental moviegoing experience of my life.

I remember a friend said he would go, and I was like... are you sure? Here's the deal. And then I would receive texts from him almost every day for 2 weeks after saying he was still thinking about the movie.

It's just not the same at home.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:51 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Any list with 2001: A Space Odyssey in the top 10 can't be all bad.
posted by fairmettle at 7:52 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

The Criterion Channel has more than half of these for streaming.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:54 AM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]

10. Singin' in the Rain (1951 USA) Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen

I approve of this list.
posted by chavenet at 7:57 AM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

21. The Passion of Joan of Arc - there have been several other films about Joan of Arc; but most included her full story, including her "mystic visions", her battles, trial, and death. This is just her trial and execution - much of the script is directly lifted from the court transcripts. So while other films make her out to be this noble heroine ordained by God or something, this really emphasizes that she was an illiterate teenager who had somehow gotten herself caught up in the middle of this situation, and was nevertheless still pretty much holding her own in the courtroom. That made it a far, far more poignant film.

And there's even a great story about the film itself. The original film was heavily cut and censored by the Archbishop of Paris before it was released; director Theodor Dreyer kept the master, but there was a fire in the warehouse a year later, and for a long time that censored version was the only one anyone could see. But then in 1981, a janitor at a Norwegian mental institution found a second copy of Dreyer's original version just sitting there in a broom closet or something; to this day no one knows how it ended up in such an astonishingly weird place. If you try to see this film, make sure you're seeing that version if possible.

20. Seven Samurai Y'all, there are tropes from this that turn up in the Avengers movies even. I loved it.

16. Meshes of the Afternoon In a weird way, this was one of the more accessible "experimental" films I've seen. Maybe because it was clear from the get-go that this was using Dream Logic, so I was able to go with it on that front.

13. La Règle du jeu - There's a scene in here set at a party that feels like someone was trying to cram in all of the plot threads from an entire season of Downton Abbey in only five minutes. The rest of the film preceding that scene feels like it's your standard soapy story about The Lives And Loves Of The Upper Class; but right after this scene it takes a turn and you figure out that Renoir has actually throwing shade at the Powers That Be for doing such ridiculous bullshit instead of trying to stave off the upcoming war.

10. Singin' in the Rain - *happy sigh* I am not that big a fan of movie musicals as a rule, but somehow this worked. Especially the scene with the Title Track - not only is Gene Kelly's character having a blast, you can tell Gene Kelly himself is having a blast, and that makes it even better.

Gene Kelly was a guest on one of the last-ever episodes of The Muppet Show; the conceit they used was that Kermit had invited him to perform on the show, but he'd somehow misunderstood and thought he was just going to watch the Muppets as a special VIP audience member, and really appreciated not being asked to perform for the Nth time. So there was this whole back-and-forth throughout the episode of the Muppets subtly trying to get him to perform and him not getting that that's what they wanted; then at the end, the Muppets revealed that they'd recreated the set from this scene in hopes. At the end of the episode, Kelly sings the Muppets a medley of some Gershwin tunes, but then ends with a couple lines of "Singin' In The Rain" - and then walks out onto that empty set, looks around at it fondly, then smiles into the camera and walks off. And at the very very end, you can see that even here, he can't resist doing a little shuffle step as he walks at one point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:06 AM on December 2, 2022 [9 favorites]

I've never seen Jeanne Dielman, but that will need to change.

Most of the complaints I have are idiosyncratic I guess... No Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days at least belongs here) and horror is a bit underrepresented/low in the order. It also still feels like there is a lingering Boomer contingent forcing some fine but hardly world-beating studio-era films considerably higher than they really need to be. But I'm delighted to see Sátántangó by Béla Tarr on the list. And Daughters of the Dust, too! I'd have bet on those getting snubbed. And they really deserve their spots.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:12 AM on December 2, 2022

95. A Man Escaped ...It's a great escape film, but I wanted to know more about the guy who was trying to escape.

LOL!
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:15 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I saw Daughters of the Dust at EbertFest a few years ago with Julie Dash presenting and answering questions afterward. Amazing film.
posted by octothorpe at 8:16 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've seen all the films on the list except Daisies, which I've never even heard of, oddly.

I would have put Balthazar higher (top 10) and would love to see Head-On or The Golden Glove on there, as well as at least one Haneke (Code Unknown would be my pick) and one Dardennes (Rosetta). Melville not being represented is also kind of sad. I would have went with Le Samourai.

I like Dielman just fine but prefer Akerman's I You He She, though understand why others don't. Part of the reason Dielman is getting a renaissance is because it simply was not available to watch before. Criterion only released it in the last 10 or 15 years. Most other films on the list are readily available to watch for anyone who wanted to hunt them down.
posted by dobbs at 8:18 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Paper chromatographologist: Yeah, I know that's a weird comment. But they start by just showing this guy getting thrown into a prison, and then all we ever see him do is try to work out all of the logistics of his escape. He doesn't really talk to anyone, he doesn't Monlogue To Himself about things - he's in prison, he's trying to get out, that's it. Even just a tiny bit of backstory would have enhanced things for me. He even gets a chance to do that in a later scene when they throw another guy in his cell with him right before his planned escape, and he's trying to feel the other guy out a little to see if he can be trusted; the other guy tells him his own backstory, and the main character realizes he's safe. But then the other guy asks him "so what about you", and the main character just says something like "it's after midnight, we need to get to sleep" or something, and we don't hear anything.

Ironically, there's also another French film about a prison break - Le Trou - which did give me tiny bits of character development, and I did like it better as a result.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:20 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

half those movies suck. and no love for Rubin and Ed? smgdh
posted by lkc at 8:21 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

There are at least three Preston Sturges films that are better than Some Like It Hot (FIGHT ME), which is in the middle of the list... and Sturges is completely absent from it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:23 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]

MetaFilter: I loved it but I was a weird kid.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:35 AM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]

>The Criterion Channel has more than half of these for streaming.
>half those movies suck

it's a list of two halves
posted by chavenet at 8:35 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Way too much Godard. Super happy that Varda is there twice, especially The Gleaners and I. But how is Jacques Demy not on here at all?
posted by oulipian at 8:37 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]

I fully grok that by marrying a Romanian, my orientation on cinema has a personal skew to it. But there are, best I can tell, no films on this list from the Romanian New Wave, and that is some of the best work in cinema over the past 20 years to these eyes.

My personal list would include at least three: the aforementioned 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, a Palme d'Or winner that is the single most gut-wrenching film ever made about abortion; Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu; and Ioana Poicaru's Lemonade.

Lemonade is not particularly easy to see in the Western hemisphere, or I would post it to FF in a nanosecond. It is an absolute sledgehammer of a film about exploitation of immigrants in the US. If you have access to the CBC Gems service in Canada, you can see it there, but it's nowhere in the US, on physical media or streaming.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:38 AM on December 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

Ironically, there's also another French film about a prison break - Le Trou - which did give me tiny bits of character development, and I did like it better as a result.

Maybe they decided they had to drop Trou.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:45 AM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

The directors' list is interesting too. Mostly the same films, but the biggest differences I noticed is that they include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (at 93), and the top spot goes to 2001 (probably my personal favorite movie).
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:47 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Le Trou is the best prison movie ever made, imo.
posted by dobbs at 8:47 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Wow, I was so excited to see that Chantal Akerman movie until I...saw that it's 200 minutes long and yeah, I'm never gonna see that.

As usual with lists like this, the items are fascinating but I'm incapable of thinking about the ranking and retaining my sanity. I love Mulholland Drive, but is it really better than The Godfather? Is The Godfather Part II seriously not even here? By what calculus can any person evaluate the relative merits of Do the Right Thing and My Neighbor Totoro? It's nonsense.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:48 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

When I was studying film in college, we were looking over various all-time lists and noticed that for a few generations, there was an alternating tendency to promote one of and demote one of Keaton and Chaplin. That made for something of an insight into each generation's mindset.

Interesting they're both here on this list, and more or less in balance, too.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:51 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh, a couple more on the directors' list that I don't believe are on the regular list: The Conversation, The Seventh Seal, and Chinatown, all tied at 72. Also Jaws and Lawrence of Arabia, tied at 62, Eraserhead (53), Dr. Strangelove (46), and Godfather Part 2 (26).
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:51 AM on December 2, 2022

I love JEANNE DIELMAN and I'm quite glad to see it unseat VERTIGO, which I have all sorts of... feelings about, having to do with San Francisco and the tics of Hitchcockian plotting and, you know, whatever happened to Midge.

But what's strange to me is the ascension of Agnes Varda, who I also love, and who made many wonderful films, but who has two films in the top 100 without the presence of her husband and partner Jacques Demy. His THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG is, and I'm not exaggerating at all, perhaps the most towering achievement of cinema, an undeniably remarkable movie that she had personally, lovingly restored for future generations multiple times, and is certainly at or near the top of my own lists. Even if you don't care for it, there's no denying that it is quite a thing, an incredible amalgamation of color, sound and human emotion. I think both CLEO and GLEANERS are very, very good, and worthy of the canonical list, but it's just really weird to me to not see UMBRELLAS alongside them.

(If you're like "why in 2022 is this guy talking about this umbrella movie what even", believe me, give it an hour and a half of your life.)
posted by eschatfische at 8:51 AM on December 2, 2022 [11 favorites]

Not much to say on this list other than I finally saw Celine and Julie Go Boating this year and it's the first movie in a long time that I've wanted to live in.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 8:57 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

eschatfische: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of my favorite films. That it exists at all sometimes gives me a wave of unexpected happiness. The colors! The music! It could be easily over-the-top and mawkish but it really isn't because it is also so well orchestrated by Demy.

I mean: the opening scene in the auto garage!
And: Mr. Cassard
posted by vacapinta at 9:09 AM on December 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

EmpressCallipygo - THANK YOU for that link to the video of Gene Kelly on the Muppet Show. Made me a bit misty.
posted by davidmsc at 9:15 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was about to say that I thought Umbrellas of Cherbourg was just ok, and then I realized that I haven't actually seen it. I was thinking of The Young Girls of Rochefort.

Which I thought was just ok (Gene Kelly aside).
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:29 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ernest Goes to Jail at #26? Not his best, but ok BFI.
posted by gordie at 9:34 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]

Also omitted from this list:

-Ken Loach
-Elia Kazan (although this one I sort of get because he sold people out to HUAC and it may take decades for that stink to fade)
-David Lean
-Peckinpah
-Robert Altman
-Tarantino (which actually does not bother me at all, but I bet it would rankle many)
-Spielberg
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:38 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

And no Andrzej Wajda!
posted by perhapses at 9:43 AM on December 2, 2022

Note that Loach, Lean and Spielberg made the directors' list.

People at r/criterion seem most rankled that Paul Thomas Anderson didn't make it.
posted by oulipian at 9:44 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was about to say that I thought Umbrellas of Cherbourg was just ok, and then I realized that I haven't actually seen it. I was thinking of The Young Girls of Rochefort.

You would think that since both were flamboyantly colorful musicals made two in a row by the same wirter-director they would be similar in tone, but UMBRELLAS and ROCHEFORT are quite different in both form and content.
posted by eschatfische at 9:48 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Umbrellas is the grumpy Bert to Rochefort's exuberant Ernie.
posted by oulipian at 9:50 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I was gratified to learn that Chantal Akerman felt similarly to me about these kinds of lists!
posted by cakelite at 9:52 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Elem Klimov's 1985 Come and See, which recently took over the all-time highest rating slot for a narrative feature on Letterboxd, is also not on this list.

Maybe they felt like Sátántangó already fulfilled their "great Eastern European films that make you feel bad" quotient.

Sátántangó is ***seven hours and nineteen minutes long*** by the way, but it's still a top fiver all time for me.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:55 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

The only thing i don't like about The Young Girls of Rochefort is knowing that Françoise Dorléac died pretty horribly in a car wreck right after finishing it. She would have probably been as big as star as her sister.
posted by octothorpe at 9:56 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Le Trou is the best prison movie ever made, imo.

Since you've seen it, you will understand this reference: That last time someone checks that mirror on the pen. I gasped for real.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:59 AM on December 2, 2022

I've only seen eight movies on this list. No Strange Brew? No Blues Brothers? These people obviously hate movies.
posted by slogger at 10:28 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm missing about two dozen of these.

But I've seen all 100 of the AFI's 100 Years, 100 Thrills list.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:41 AM on December 2, 2022

Hey vacapinta -- I appreciate your post, its framing, and the several links about Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Folks who want to talk about Jeanne Dielman, maybe join me in FanFare since folks in this thread mostly want to talk about the top 100 list as a whole?
posted by brainwane at 10:42 AM on December 2, 2022

I really can't stand Lynch so I acknowledge it's a personal failing, but I was pretty disappointed to see Mulholland Drive in the top 10. Otherwise pretty solid, excited to see multiple 2010s movies in the list, that's pretty rare, I believe the 2012 list only had one from the prior decade.
posted by Carillon at 10:45 AM on December 2, 2022

Where the f is Lubitsch????
posted by Omon Ra at 10:54 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

95. A Man Escaped ...It's a great escape film, but I wanted to know more about the guy who was trying to escape.

The reason we don't know anything about the escapee is because he's all of us; You, me, Robert Bresson, everybody. Transcendentalism strikes again!
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:25 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

In The Mood For Love is so, so gorgeous and good.
posted by emd3737 at 11:43 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

There's probably some good theoretical math behind this, but my take is that the bigger the universe of films to select for a list like this, the more likely you'll get a flattening of the curve -- more films get chosen by the voters, and fewer films get chosen by a large number of the voters.

For example, in 1990 it would have been easy to see both Godfathers on the list because not only were there 32 fewer years to pick films from, but most older obscure films had faded from memory. There was a Criterion around then, but even then you'd most likely go to a public library to watch an old film on a laserdisc player.

So there are far more films to choose from now. Maybe if they ran multiple rounds of voting. Each round eliminates all the films that got less than say 5% of the votes, and then the final list would look as one might expect.

As for discovering those unknown gems, there are tons of curated letterboxd lists that can help out.
posted by morspin at 11:46 AM on December 2, 2022

I like the director’s list a lot better than the the critic’s list.

The absence of Dog Day Afternoon from either list is baffling to me.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 12:23 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

So many amazing films on this list and several I've never heard of and will be seeking out. With that said, I just can't wrap my head around why Mulholland Dr. is in the top 10. I've watched the film twice and I really wanted to like it but it's always felt half baked. I loved Blue Velvet and even Eraserhead was a visual marvel but Mulholland Dr. feels so disjointed and jarring. When I read that Lynch had filmed it originally as a tv pilot the unfinished feel of half the movie made sense.

The weird thing is that every time I see it referenced I immediately have strong feelings that I should like it but I don't and I can't even figure out why I should appreciate it.
posted by photoslob at 12:30 PM on December 2, 2022

My taste in movies tracks very closely with that of Roger Ebert. I had an iPhone app that held his reviews of what he called the Great Movies (but the app wasn't updated for newer iOS and no longer works). It had the full text of his reviews and often updated reviews. I found the film list online and pasted into a Note on my iPhone. I may do the same with this list so that I can reference it on my every Sunday scan of what's coming up on TCM.

FYI, Jeanne Dielman isn't on Kanopy.
posted by neuron at 12:33 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

The one big disappointment for me was seeing Daisies so high, especially in comparison to Daughters of the Dust. Daughters of the Dust is an important film about a marginalized community, where Daisies is 90 solid minutes of white women being messy.
posted by pxe2000 at 2:04 PM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

I’d love to see a “Philistine’s Edition” of this list - rank ordered by people who had never heard of each title before let alone seen it, who have never studied film and who were encouraged to walk out of any screening they found boring. Also a ranking by those taken to see each film as part of a date.
posted by rongorongo at 2:12 PM on December 2, 2022

I know every list will elicit reaction of "why is Film I Don't Like on this list but Film I Do Like isn't???" but THREE Kubricks and zero Almodovar?
posted by less-of-course at 2:20 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

A one film per director limit would have helped.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:44 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I've always felt the Sight and Sound poll (and I'm shocked to realise this is the fifth poll I've been aware of coming out) is the most straightforward such list, and in some ways the cleanest: A wide range of film critics from around the world are asked to provide their top tens (they used to print the individual lists, do they still do that?), and then those lists are combined into a canonical list. A critic's top ten list might fairly be taken to represent their critical language - the way they understand film - and so the combined list does sort of embody where film criticism is when the poll is taken - every ten years is rare enough to show epochal shifts. For a long time the ideal film was Citizen Kane, and then for a while it was Vertigo and now it's Jeanne Dielmann.

If the poll favours anything it might be called cinematic effectiveness: Is Mulholland Drive Lynch's best film? Perhaps not, but it has a sweep and a grace to it and it might be his most cinematic (ironically, considering its television origins), and I think in the last poll it was a lot higher. I wonder about the critical path that Jeanne Dielmann took to get here - enough critics have to put it high on their lists to raise it up, so a critical narrative must have grown up around it (as it did for Vertigo after its 1983 re-release).

I'm surprised that Fury Road hasn't crept in to the bottom of the list, as Moonlight has but I'm sure it's on some critics' lists.

It's not really like a Rolling Stone ranked list - it's more a snapshot of film criticism at the beginning of a new decade.
posted by Grangousier at 3:25 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I really can't stand Lynch so I acknowledge it's a personal failing, but I was pretty disappointed to see Mulholland Drive in the top 10.

Mulholland Drive is a masterpiece, imo, and I'm not a Lynch fan. It's the best American movie of the last 20 years.

Here's my take on it from an old AskMe.
posted by dobbs at 3:58 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

A one film per director limit would have helped.

Since they just pick the films that had the most votes out of each critic's un-ranked list of 10 films, there's a strong bias for directors who have fewer important films. If you're thinking of adding a Kubrick, there's only a handful of choices, the same with say Tarkovsky or Ridley Scott but if you're thinking about Spielberg, Almodovar or Lumet, there's so many to choose from that the votes get spread out among many films.
posted by octothorpe at 4:10 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

A one film per director limit would have helped.

Helped get rid of some of the greatest movies. Not sure that's a benefit. You'd be removing A Matter of Life and Death for example, a stone classic.

It's the best American movie of the last 20 years.

I have bad news from the International Journal of We Got Old.
posted by biffa at 4:45 AM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

What fascinates me about this list is how spectacularly bad it makes the Oscars look. There are 36 movies on this list from the USA; four couldn't be nominated for Best Picture (two Keatons that predate the Oscars; Meshes of the Afternoon is a short; Killer of Sheep wasn't commercially released at the time).

....Well, I've just had a depressing thought....

So, right before Trump was elected, you will recall that the Chicago Cubs finally won the World Series for the first time in 108 years. So it was this enormous cultural Thing that happened - followed about a week later by some bad news. I tongue-in-cheek thought that those two things were sort of cosmically related - the sheer amount of Good Karma needed to push the Cubs into a win had to be offset in some equally huge way, and Trump winning had to happen in order to do that.

Well - for years I have cynically assumed that the Oscars will never award Best Picture to the film I most want to see win. I've accepted this - I have a bit of an offbeat taste, and I know that the Oscar awards its prizes by committee and there's a lowest-common-denominator thing going on - but it's a bit of a pessimistic take on my part. So when Parasite was nominated for Best Picture, I again thought "yeah, in an ideal world that'll win, but it won't - it'll get Best International Feature as a consolation prize and they'll give it to something else." And it did win Best International Feature - but it also won Best Picture, the first time a non-English language picture won ever. And Bong Joon Ho won best Screenplay and Best Director. It was a huge victory, and a lot of cineastes I know were thrilled about that and saw it as The Year The Academy Got Things Right For A Change.

I tagged along with my roommate's movie meetup group when they went to watch the broadcast at a movie-themed bar; my roommate is also an aficionado of Korean culture, and I think that was the happiest I've ever seen him. That was a hell of a great night out....

....and it turned out to be everyone's last night out for a long time, because Covid hit the US like a week later.

So I think that what it may take for the Oscars to actually give an accurate depiction of cinematic quality is to offset that with some other huge international tragedy. ...I think I'll stick with the lackluster Oscars in that case.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:07 AM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

The oscars suck because it's limited to just 'movies this year' but also because it's an industry marketing event. Studios put on oscar campaigns, release movies during 'awards season' and try to convince others to vote for their films because a movie that gets the award often gets rereleased to make more money, gets to have the oscar stuff slapped all over the rental advertisments, etc. Also it's industry insiders so people are going to vote their interests (which films were made by their friends and financial allies) instead of voting purely on questions of merit. Only film nerds care about the Sight and Sound list, it makes no difference, so it's more objective.
posted by dis_integration at 8:04 AM on December 3, 2022

I mean Crash won best picture! And not the Cronenberg one! Clearly a bad system.
posted by dis_integration at 8:05 AM on December 3, 2022

I saw Jeanne Dielman in a film class in college on female directors (Meshes in the Afternoon was another) in 2002 and the only way to show it was that the professor rented a copy on film and projected it for us. It’s one of the most transcendent experiences of my life. I felt like I had lived as the main character, just total identification.

For a long while I would mention it to people as one of my trinity of favorite films, and would get blank stares, dismissals and the occasional happy shout. I was giddy with delight when it showed up on the Sight and Sound list last time, but I don’t know how I can handle it topping the list. Teenage aspiring film nerds will be streaming this for the next decade, and that’s odd to think about. It’s not a film I generally recommend to people (though I will note that I was the first to mention it on MetaFilter, recommending it in an extremely odd context, and I’ll take those bragging rights).
posted by Kattullus at 8:14 AM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

The thing about the Oscars is that except for a few years in the 70s, they've always been terrible. All the way back to the beginning.
posted by octothorpe at 2:20 PM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

The oscars suck because it's limited to just 'movies this year' but also because it's an industry marketing event.

Oh, I know that that's the real reason things are the way they are. The thing with Parasite and Covid was more of a tongue-in-cheek magical-thinking joke thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:33 PM on December 3, 2022

Great to see Do The Right Thing so high up, but where is The Matrix? And when are serious critics going to admit it kicks ass? Mulholland Drive, really? It's the film equivalent of when you flick your fingers over your lips and make a burbling noise.
posted by mokey at 4:16 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

Has anyone ever actually watched all of satantango? (love the book).
Three times. Mesmerising. It draws you in to another world. Ms vac2003 kindly agreed to watch it with me once. She said, "I didn't enjoy it, but I see what you mean.".
posted by vac2003 at 3:46 PM on December 4, 2022 [4 favorites]

Wow, I was so excited to see that Chantal Akerman movie until I...saw that it's 200 minutes long and yeah, I'm never gonna see that.

Why do people feel the need to say things like this? Like what is this even supposed to mean?
posted by rhymedirective at 5:10 PM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]

Wow, I was so excited to see that Chantal Akerman movie until I...saw that it's 200 minutes long and yeah, I'm never gonna see that.

Avengers: Endgame is 184 minutes.

The Godfather Part II is 202 minutes.

So is Spike Lee's Malcom X.

Schindler's List is about 195 minutes.

Titanic is about 194 minutes.

Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King is 201 minutes.

....So, I don't think the length of the film is what's putting you off.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:47 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's funny the way life is - I'm no film buff but I recently read When We Fell Apart by Soon Wiley (which was really good!). Tokyo Story is described in it at some point and I thought it sounded really interesting so I watched it last week and really enjoyed it. I don't know how I would have come across it otherwise, and yet here it is again.
posted by urbanlenny at 6:16 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

Has anyone ever actually watched all of satantango?

The great thing about Sátántangó is actually related to its length. Watching does not actually require you to pay the kind of intense attention you might expect. Because things unroll in a kind of extended, contemplative pace, it has the feeling of actually being there for something that is happening. So you just sort of take it in.

The last time I watched it, we put out plates of Hungarian food (thanks, Comrade Doll!) in waves and drank and ate and drank and ate. We never paused for anything. When the scenes are like fifteen minutes long, no one has to catch you up if you go to the bathroom or the kitchen for two minutes.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:34 PM on December 4, 2022

Jeanne Dielman in the theater is a top three movie experience. Such a visceral emotional experience.

Interesting to see Varda as director of the highest rated French New Wave film on the list. Cleo is absolutely a masterpiece though.
posted by toddforbid at 7:35 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

Wow, I was so excited to see that Chantal Akerman movie until I...saw that it's 200 minutes long and yeah, I'm never gonna see that.
The IMDB comments feature a number of contributions from people who saw Jeanne Dielman at the top of this list, spend 3 hours and ten minutes watching it and now are threatening to hammer at the doors of the BFI asking for that portion of their life back. Not for everybody I guess.
posted by rongorongo at 2:33 AM on December 5, 2022

People will happily binge six hours of TV in an afternoon so I'm not sure why three hours of a movie are impossible.
posted by octothorpe at 4:29 AM on December 5, 2022

movies and tv are different energies. i can write a hundred posts on the web long before i can write an essay. and Dielman demands full attention, something most people struggle with in their living rooms lately
posted by dis_integration at 8:11 AM on December 5, 2022

I saw The Godfather II for the first time at the weekend and was delighted to see it included “Intermission” - suddenly you are released after an hour and a half of close concentration to go and have an ice cream. Long films - even the very best - are subject to the capacity of people’s attention, seating comfort and bladders.
posted by rongorongo at 8:56 AM on December 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

My favorite long-movie experience was a semi-Bollywood film called Lagaan from 2001, clocking in at 3 hours, 45 minutes. I caught it on cable one rainy Sunday afternoon.

The movie takes place in India during colonial times, and a drought has made it difficult for a particular town to pay taxes to the Crown and goes to the colonial government to ask for mercy. The British governor (a real dick) makes a bet with the local farmers (led by Aamir Khan) - if the Indians can beat the Brits in a game of cricket, he will discharge their tax burden for the next three years; if they lose, the Indians must pay three times the taxes. The farmers agree, despite having no idea what cricket is or how to play.

One of the British women (she's the local governor's sister or girlfriend or daughter or someone) takes pity on the Indians and teaches them how to play cricket. The cricket match itself takes up the last third or so of the movie.

So it's part historical drama, part Bollywood musical, part sports movie. I was completely rapt. Highly recommended.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:16 AM on December 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

“Intermission”

Actually that's an interesting point - in many countries movie intermissions used to be standard in theater screenings (and I think they still are in some places). Were there intermissions in France/Belgium when Jeanne Dielman was made? Would it have been made with the expectation that viewings would be interrupted?
posted by trig at 12:29 PM on December 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

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