Adam Pelling-Deeves: Video Production, Oxford – Corporate & Creative

Posted on February 7th, 2013 by Adam Pelling-Deeves

For a while now, I’ve been steadily watching (in a vaguely chronological order) what are considered to be the most important films ever made.

A few years ago I was reading The Story of Film by Mark Cousins and I realised that I obviously didn’t have a full understanding of any of the points that were made about films I hadn’t seen. So I decided to make it my quest to watch as many of these films (along with those from a couple of other respected lists) as possible. It’s turned out to be a valuable pastime, as watching them chronologically really helps in understanding why many left such a big mark, and were considered to be so innovative in both style and technique.

I’ve just moved into the sixties, so this is a good moment to reflect on what were my ten favourites of the fifties (so far!). Here they are:

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa 1950)
Tokyo Story / Tôkyô monogatari (Yasujirô Ozu 1953)
Seven Samurai / Shichinin no samurai (Akira Kurosawa 1954)
On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan 1954)
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray 1955)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer 1955)
A Man Escaped / Un condamné à mort s’est échappé ou Le vent (Robert Bresson 1956)
Kanal (Andrzej Wajda 1957)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick 1957)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet 1957)

It’ll be a while before I can reveal my best of the sixties but here are previous the decades from the twenties to the forties:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. (Robert Wiene 1920)
Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler / Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler – Ein Bild der Zeit (Fritz Lang 1922)
Nosferatu / Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (F.W. Murnau 1922)
The Last Laugh / Der letzte Mann (F.W. Murnau 1924)
Battleship Potemkin / Bronenosets Potyomkin (Sergei M. Eisenstein 1925)
The Adventures of Prince Achmed / Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (Lotte Reiniger & Carl Koch 1926)
The General (Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton 1926)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang 1927)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau 1927)
Man with a Movie Camera / Chelovek s kino-apparatom (Dziga Vertov 1929)

The Blood of a Poet / Le Sang d’un Poète (Jean Cocteau 1930)
The Blue Angel / Der Blaue Engel (Josef von Sternberg 1930)
Freedom for Us / À Nous la Liberté (René Clair 1931)
M (Fritz Lang 1931)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse / Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang 1933)
The Crime of Monsieur Lange / Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (Jean Renoir 1936)
The Rules of the Game / La Règle du Jeu (Jean Renoir 1939)
Daybreak / Le Jour se Leve (Marcel Carné 1939)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra 1939)
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming 1939)

The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford 1940)
Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock 1940)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles 1941)
Brighton Rock (John Boulting 1947)
Gentleman’s Agreement (Elia Kazan 1947)
Odd Man Out (Carol Reed 1947)
Record of a Tenement Gentleman / Nagaya shinshiroku (Yasujirô Ozu 1947)
Bicycle Thieves / Ladri di biciclette (Vittorio De Sica 1948)
Late Spring / Banshun (Yasujirô Ozu 1949)
The Silence of the Sea / Le Silence de la Mer (Jean-Pierre Melville 1949)

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