Edward Copeland's Tangents

"One of the great Soviet films as well as one of the great movie love stories ... , With some exquisite photography, a grand old-fashioned orchestral score and several astonishing impressionistic sequences, (Kalatozov) ... amplifies the already-heightened romanticism of the story in a way that, rather than soapy, becomes intensely affecting."
Goran

"This one rides a razor blade of ambiguity to deliver one of the most tragic wallops in the history of cinema in its final scene. Absolutely devastating."
Jeff

"Stands to reason that a gay communist atheist would make the best religious movie ever. By sticking to the text, mostly — and the land and faces of southern Italy — though he does use the style, the handheld cameras, zooming, telephoto lenses, to great effect as well."
Weeping Sam

"After seeing this for the first time, I turned to the person sitting next to me and said 'If it was playing again right now, I would definitely stay.'"
Dave McDougall

"Have you ever been stuck at a party where you just can't leave. Well..."
Meier Vermes

"'The Butterfly Effect' was a movie with an important point about time travel: you should never go back in time to change the past because you, Ashton Kutcher, are an idiot. One of the virtues of this movie is this shows what happens when someone with brains tries to do it."
Meier Vermes

"Cocteau was one of the greatest multitalented artists of the 20th century, and a much better filmmaker than most people who devoted their lives exclusively to the craft. And his simple practical effects are more intoxicating than the photorealistic CGI clogging multiplexes today."
Paul C.

"The Blue Angel gave us sexuality as a means of control. Movies before, and far too many since, have lost themselves on libido but The Blue Angel understands that for so many people, sexual gratification comes from a sense of surrendering yourself to someone else, or controlling someone you could not control in the polite society of the real world."
Jonathan Lapper

"I know many don't think this even deserves to be in the running - either because it is too recent or because it is too sugary sweet. No matter, I love it. And if I've seen it 6 or 7 times , why would it matter if it's only 6 years old? It's a favorites list ... Not a 'completely objective definitive most influential standing the test of time' list. Anyway, when Amelie melts in a puddle on the floor, it's a perfect way of representing visually how she felt."
Bob Turnbull

"I highly encourage watching this film. It is such an amazing film, that deals with the effects of war in such an interesting way through Paulette, a five year old girl ... Paulette's attempts to understand God, death, war, family and friendship are unfolded in such a neat way in this picture. This is a true gem."
RC

"Want to talk rigorous? I think that's what turns a lot of people off: it's hard to imagine a director this in control of sublime details accruing across a film for maximum affective impact around every corner."
Ryland Walker Knight

"Heartbreak hotel. Too bad Agnes doesn't get her due when it comes to the image we're given of the French New Wave and its pack of Cahiers boys. (It's clearly reflected in this list, isn't it?)"
Ryland Walker Knight

"With one of the classic one-shot jokes of all time."
Meier Vermes

"Even in its failures it demonstrates its ambition."
Joseph Cox

"The kind of movie that, if you see it at the right time in your life, might have the power to change the way you look at movies forever."
Dennis Cozzalio

"I love how these scenes fit together, but fit together so loosely to tell such an interesting story about humanity."
RC

"Any fool can blaspheme, but it takes a genius like Buñuel to do it with this kind of wit, passion and wholehearted commitment."
Campaspe

"It is to be young. Put this together with Godard's earlier Bande a
part and Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night and you have one formula for the elixir of youth — bourgeois Caucasian/European youth (say, 18-22) in the first half of the 1960s. But universally translated into 24 fps and crystalline b&w (and 1.33 - 1.66 — not 1.85 or CinemaScope!)."
Jim Emerson

"Here's one that, while certainly a product of its time and place ... feels like it could almost be from anywhere, so unusual is its aesthetic approach and so universal are its themes of individual vs. society, society vs. nature, etc. The collaboration of writer Kobo Abe, composer Toru Takemitsu and director Hiroshi Teshigahara was one of the most fruitful of 1960s cinema and Woman in the Dunes is almost certainly the film in which all three men were operating at the closest to the height of their powers."
Brian

"Kicked off the '70s paranoid political thriller genre, whose movies never came close to their originator."
Odienator

"It's just like Saving Private Ryan — only it's realistic!"
Oliver Quest

"Bergman funny? You bet and it'll leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy."
Bob Turnbull

"The shot of Jessica Harper walking out of the airport, a gust of wind blowing her hair, is magical."
Peter Nellhaus

"Open City is one of the few films in history that is not only a work of art, but a necessary catharsis for a people lost and experiencing unbearable pain. It is also a vital historical artifact, capturing on film forever the look and feel of a war torn city."
Jonathan Lapper

"The theatrical version is good, the television version is genius. Only in the longer version do you get the full impact of Bergman’s relationship hell."
Mark White

"Almovodar has taken up Altman's title as the most feminist major director."
Joseph Cox

"My Night at Maud's is my all-time favorite Christmas movie. As much as it is a great film that is essentially about two people staying up all night talking, given the opportunity I probably would have wanted to do more than just converse with Francoise Fabian. That's why I like Eric Rohmer films — the women are both hot and smart."
Peter Nellhaus

"What a beautiful nightmare perfectly rendered."
J. Cochrane

"Filled with love for films and those who make them. The way it portrays the cast and crew of the movie-within-a-movie is democratic in the best sense of the word."
L. Stevens

"Fassbinder uses All That Heaven Allows to craft a heartbreaking tribute to Douglas Sirk."
Odienator

"The English name of the Fassbinder film should be Ali: Fear Eat Soul. It's incorrect in German as well, to suggest the language barrier between the immigrants and the Germans."
Gregory

"It was the sort of film that would have been common if sound had come to film later and yet the narration made me cry."
Joseph Cox

"One of the strangest and most chilling films I've ever seen."
Jeff

"Fellini's nostalgia film may seem slight at first, but it's still wildly entertaining and quite funny. An effective swan song to his great period."
J. Cochrane

"The scene I find myself remembering, over and over again, is the excruciatingly long take of Jean-Pierre Cassel, watching from a basement window as his comrades start up their truck and leave him and his friend behind forever."
Campaspe

"One of the best war movies ever. Riveting and thankfully apolitical."
J. Cochrane

"It's the ultimate chick movie and a classic of French postmodernism!"
Tamsin Leyton

"This film is akin to watching a feather float on warm breeze for 90 minutes. My favorite foreign musical containing three absolute treasures — Michel Legrand's legendary score, the exquisite beauty of Catherine Deneuve, and the sumptuous art/set design by Bernard Evein. A most intoxicating film, it works like a cinematic cure for depression."
Ron Houghton

"The notion of a kabuki adaptation of MacBeth may strike you as intriguing more than credible. But considering their shared affinity for bloodletting, 'universal' subjects and lofty, sweeping statements on humanity, Akira Kurosawa is maybe the closest the cinema has offered to a Shakespeare successor."
Goran

"As if Godard were reborn in Hong Kong. Dazzling and unexpected."
Sterling Taylor

"The truest picture of grief and recovery ever on screen."
Joseph Cox

"Who can honestly forget the fight scenes in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Has there ever been a fight scene that conveys so much emotion as Jen and Li Mu Bai soaring through the trees?"
Sam Brooks

"Who wouldn't want to stop everything for the chance to dance The Madison with Anna Karina?"
Peter Nellhaus

"Dassin created the heist genre as we know with this film of Parisian crooks. With harsh lighting and rainswept streets this film one of the best French noirs. The complicated heist, sans score, is 30 minutes of cinema bliss."
Ron Houghton

"Old, reckless Almodovar meets new, mature Almodovar, and the results are nothing less than shattering. Haunted me for days."
Odienator

"Beautiful cinematography, and nothing happens ... which is precisely Antonioni's point I suppose. His isolationist nature in this film makes Ingmar Bergman look like an optimist. A great film that probably needs multiple viewings to truly appreciate it. Unthinkable in Pan and Scan."
J. Cochrane

"Like Jane Austen, it suggests that one family represents an entire universe."
Carrie Rickey

"When Edward Yang tragically died earlier this year, it ensured that Yi Yi: A One and a Two would go down with Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, Mizoguchi's Street of Shame and Sirk's Imitation of Life as one of the great directorial swan songs. What a loss."
Brian

"Yes it's sappy and manipulative. I wouldn't have it any other way."
Jesse Cunningham

"You expect it to be about death and finality and instead it's about renewal and resurrection."
Carrie Rickey

"Though it can be incredibly funny, in the end it is a sad, melancholy journey that we go on with these people. They discover not the artifice of the roadside curio shop but the dirt spitting out from the back tires. To their delight, they discover that heaven’s mouth is real, not a fantasy, but the reality of heaven’s mouth pushes the boys into an adulthood they can’t quite face."
Mark White

"I'm not a pet person, but this 'dog movie'(Fike! Fike!) is one of the most piercing studies of loneliness and the hell that may be waiting for all of us in old age. Forget playing chess with Death. Just try navigating a world hostile to the sad and infirm. De Sica was the first prophet of the AARP generation."
The Shamus

"One of my all time favorite moments in a film — when Mifune throws a bunch of greedy executives out of his house and behind him you can see Tatsuya Nakadai and his partner judging them. The way Nakadai looks at the executives as they leave might be the best putdown ever put on film."
Weeping Sam

"A fascinating glimpse of Chinese marriage and a wife's place in it. Wonderful art direction and cinematography."
J. Cochrane

"Hey, I just looked up the word 'exquisite' in the Oxford English
Dictionary and there's a still from Madame de...!"
Jim Emerson

"The film has everything — far more comedy than it gets credit for; the cultural details and critiques, from all angles — celebrating Japanese culture, making fun of it, working in all those baseball and movie jokes, putting that big Coke sign in the middle of a happy interlude; the brilliant performances, the way Hara and Ryu move, she being brought to bay, he holding everything in, acting the old man; everything. Almost endlessly rewarding, and ultimately heart-breaking."
Weeping Sam

"Mrs. Fellini's sweet round clown face makes me watch this movie multiple times every year."
Steve on the Mountain

"If I had to choose just one movie — one movie — above all others on this list, Mizoguchi's would be it. I've long felt that if there were a god, the closest expression we're likely to find on this earth in in this movie. It's not the only film on my list that gives me goosebumps whenever the title is mentioned, but I don't believe there's ever been a greater motion picture in any language. This one sees life and memory as a creek flowing into a lake out into a river and into the sea."
Jim Emerson

"Bresson made us realize that the narrative happened BETWEEN scenes"
Carrie Rickey

"In my view, the most rewarding film experience I’ve ever had. Intellectually stimulating, emotionally resonant, and spiritually significant, The Decalogue is a beautiful fusion of form and function."
John Adair

"On a purely formalist level, Ingmar Bergman's film is impeccable, but it's more than that. Anchored by several of the rawest, most mesmerizing performances singed onto celluloid, it burrows with hurting, devastating preciseness into the panic of a pain that can infiltrate and suffocate the soul at its core."
Goran

"Elected to (my) top 10 because of the most gorgeous b&w photography I've ever seen. I know it's a cliche, but it must be seen in a theater to really appreciate it."
Sterling Taylor

"This film was so unique from any film I've watched, the characterization, filming, and effects are incredibly realistic, making this a definite new favorite film."
RC

"Movies that make you wax metaphysical usually aren’t as much fun as this."
Odienator

"It's got all the typical Fellini pageantry, but Giulietta Masina's performance as Cabiria gives this film its monumental power. ... Movie stars inspire sometimes scary levels of affection, and usually it seems odd to me; but I find it impossible not to go head over heels for that tiny powerhouse playing Cabiria.
Mike Doc

"One of cinema’s greatest love stories, with a glorious wild card in the mix in Michel Simon."
Paul Clark

"Buñuel had mellowed in temperament by the time of this companion piece to The Exterminating Angel, but his brutal wit is still much in evidence, and he's still got plenty to say about class entitlement and power and getting a good bite to eat."
Dennis Cozzalio

"So many unsurpassed moments in this film...so why isn't that I always zero in that thing the beast's ears do when Belle takes the 'let's be friends' tack."
Bob Westal

"The most sweepingly romantic movie every made, with a script by Jacques Prevert that achieves the status of literature, yet remains cinematic at all times. 'So you want to be loved for yourself, like the poor people? What's left for the poor people, then?'"
Campaspe

"The greatest animated film of all time. Period."
Tripp Burton
"I miss animation. Why is CGI considered cartoons?"
Joseph Cox

"Buñuel powers the story of a bourgeois housewife who inexplicably takes up prostitution with an erotic dream logic that takes full advantage of Catherine Deneuve's sleepily sensual screen presence."
Dennis Cozzalio

"The muted colors fit the tone of the story and Jef Costello's personality perfectly. And I love the interrogation scene in the police station (as the officer goes between the multiple rooms)."
Bob Turnbull

"Because Victor Sjostrom was the world's first great film director, and where else will you see Max von Sydow as a gas station attendant?"
Peter Nellhaus

"It's a murder mystery, but there's no blood. And no murder. It's a sex comedy. Without much sex. Or any laughs. It's like Lawrence of Arabia, only there's no action. Or characters who actually try to do things. Or any Academy Awards. But there's KILLER cinematography."
Meier Vermes

"A gorgeously mounted adaptation of one of the great novels of the century. ... A lot of the strongest patches in the script are lifted word for word from Lampedusa's book, but the celebrated ball sequence, which comprises the final third of the film, is pure cinema."
Goran

"The most erotic paean to sustained, unfulfilled desire I've ever seen."
Dennis Cozzalio

"This is one of the most powerfully moving and complex movies I've ever seen. I love to see how over decades all the character change and develop. At the same time it's a high energy and very engaging picture, touching on powerful themes of violence, poverty, love, and dedication."
RC

"It's what Lawrence of Arabia would be like if Peter O'Toole didn't actually do anything. Seriously, it's a lot better than that sounds."
Tamsin Leyton

"The power of this film sneaks up on you. You don’t realize how much you’ve grown to love Balthazar until the end and the impact of his death overwhelms you. Nothing prepares you for the sense of loss."
Mark White

"Just pure pleasure watching all the sight gags and invention in this film. I hope to one day see it on a big screen."
Bob Turnbull

"Once you start talking about most of these films, you realize there's just too much to say. Nothing is enough."
Weeping Sam

"Not the film people think it is, but a much better one: a sweet mini-romance."
Dave McDougall

"Brigitte Bardot as Anna Karina? Fritz Lang as Fritz Lang? The movie opens with a camera shooting the audience: you cannot fail to be a part of this motherfucker. It's terrifying like a Joan Didion novel."
Ryland Walker Knight

"One man questions his existence in a nighttime world of excess. Night after hedonistic night Marcello strives for some self worth in a atmosphere devoid of culture. The first time I saw this film I wanted to be Marcello, now I only pity him. I think it's called growing up."
Ron Houghton

"More than a tad problematic in thematic terms but about as perfectly executed formally as any film ever made. Requires more time, even still. I'd love to root it all out in more than these words someday."
Ryland Walker Knight

"The most lyrical film ever made, in any language."
L. Stevens

"Shakespeare as spectacle, and one of the most visceral experiences I’ve had at the movies."
Odienator

"A medieval morality play both set in and a product of a world in dire need of such stories. A tale of sacrifice and the resurgence of life, of mankind's possibility for goodness in a world run amok with evil. Simple and sublime."
Dave McDougall

"There aren't many films made that are better than this beautiful, lyrical piece of work. I love this film intensely."
David Gaffen

"Kurosawa made us realize that point of view is everything."
Carrie Rickey

"The perfect example of less being more. Ozu's beautiful simplicity holds it's own with any director out there. A quietly brilliant film that gets better the more you think about it."
J. Cochrane

"Bergman's crowning achievement is deceptively complex and vastly rich, and says more about life than any of his early, more direct films."
Jeff

"Next to Citizen Kane ,easily the greatest cinematic debut, and also one of the most wonderfully personal films in history. And is there ever a shot better than that final freeze frame?"
Tripp Burton

"Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers remains one of the most complicated political films ever built. Its ideas on terrorism and torture still fascinate today, especially as we continue to fight a possibly continuous war against terrorism."
Peter Labuza

"No better hallucinatory, screwed-up vision of obsession exists."
David Gaffen

"Renoir loved playing with the classes. He did so brilliantly in The Rules of the Game but by examining them in a World War I setting free of frivolity he allowed the examination to take on a life-and-death urgency that made the examination more piercing, and in the end, more personal."
Jonathan Lapper

"I don't understand this movie. I don't have to. I know it's brilliant anyway."
J. Cochrane

"If you do not tear up while watching De Sica's masterpiece, then you need surgery on your tear ducts."
Jeffrey Hill

"The last five minutes destroy my composure. There is too much happening for it to fail to do so. Perfect double bill mate with The Life Aquatic, its American remake."
Ryland Walker Knight

"How many modern directors could make a film about a child killer, and evoke the same mixture of indignation, contempt and stark, true pity for the man's wretchedness?"
Campaspe

"Kurosawa’s epic might not have invented badass, but it certainly refined it."
Paul Clark
"Kurosawa's supremely entertaining, durable and expansive action epic has probably gotten better with age, standing proudly near the top of the heap watching filmmaker after filmmaker try, and usually fail, to approach its timeless mixture of personal drama, broad comedy and surging, emotional adventure."
Dennis Cozzalio
"This is the granddaddy of epic foreign films, but like (John) Ford, never at the expense of the characters. With camerawork that still looks innovative today: including rapid cutting, quick zooms, and the fluid pacing Kurasowa set the bar for action storytelling in film for the next five decades."
Ron Houghton
"How to make friends and influence American Westerns. Magnificent in its own right."
Odienator
"This movie has more humanity packed into it than the earth."
Jeffrey Hill
"What epics should be — thrilling, moving, technically breath-taking, and historically serious. Like - one example — the historical point of the way guns are
transforming the world - all four dead samurai fall to gunfire."
Weeping Sam
"The perfect mix of entertainment and art."
Joseph Cox
"Most engaging 3+ hour movie I've ever seen."
Jesse Cunningham
"About as perfect a film as you will ever see."
Ryland Walker Knight
"Quite simply, the greatest film in ANY language of all time."
Mercurie
"It's a three-hour, 37-minute movie with a bare-bones plot and never becomes tiresome or tedious. How many action movies owe their debt to this movie?"
David Gaffen
"There’s a reason this movie seems to be on everyone’s Greatest Films lists. It is just that great."
Tripp Burton
"The best action movie ever. It's 3-1/2 hours long, but it's paced so beautifully that it doesn't seem long."
Sterling Taylor
"The incredible versatility of Takashi Shimura is demonstrated with his roles in this movie and in Ikiru.
Steve on the Mountain

"Not a perfect film, just the best."
L. Stevens
"The very flawed, human Octave may be the most lovable character in all of film."
Campaspe
"Renoir's prescient pre-war drama of societal collapse sneaks up on you and works on you from the inside out with a kind of unbearable lightness of feeling. Everyone should quit complaining that it routinely shows up in the top two of all these All-Time Best lists, just accept its greatness and bask in it."
Dennis Cozzalio
"The Discreet Lack of Charm of the Bourgeoisie."
Odienator
"As important and groundbreaking as Welles’ debut two years later, just watching the film is a semester of film school in itself."
Tripp Burton
"For two hours you ask, 'where is this going?' Then you find out the answer. Cruel and devastating. The perfect example of the plotless film."
Mark White
"The mastery of this film is beyond my capacity for speech."
Dave McDougall
"About as perfect a screenplay as you can imagine"
Ryland Walker Knight
"'Everyone has his reasons.' Funny, heartbreaking, foolish, and wise. One movie I can watch again and again."
Sterling Taylor
"I didn't get this movie until about half way through. Then something clicked, and by the end I was convinced its landmark reputation is warranted."
J. Cochrane
"That moment with the woman sitting and wistfully watching the mechanical piano do its thing without needing her to play it kills me every time."
Jeff
"When I first rented it, as soon as it ended, I rewound and watched it again. You could put it on a loop and never get tired of it, I think. It's hard to say much more and ever stop talking about it."
Weeping Sam
"'I wanted to depict a society dancing on a volcano' said Jean Renoir in regards to this wise, worldly and intricate comedy of pre-war upstairs-downstairs parallels and vicissitudes. He plays it wry and cheeky, but don't underestimate his bite. He paints an outwardly elegant though charred milieu, where characters know all there is to know about their own as well as each other's caprices and shortcomings, and have learned to be quite relaxed about them — those that haven't are bound to suffer. And though Renoir is eager to inject wherever possible his famous generosity of spirit, he's too shrewd to be at all optimistic. You could accuse him of cynicism, but you'd be misguided. He's long past cynicism."
Goran