Deep Focus Review's Top 100 Films

by Brian Eggert
7/11/2008

As warned, this site’s previous Top 100 list, first published in July of 2007, was bound to change...

You’re probably familiar with how favorite movies transform over time. Sometimes this is your favorite, sometimes that is your favorite. Revisiting numerous titles this last year, my views altered, albeit slightly, demanding I advance certain films and demote others within their rankings. Rest assured, however, my Top 50 remains virtually intact, save for some minor tweaks. Moreover, where the American Film Institute’s various “100 Years, 100 Films” lists (indeed, even my own prior selection) could burst from the modest breathing room allowed, upon this revision I’ve popped the bubble and embraced the spill-over. 100 films, so I’ve learned, just isn’t enough—thus illustrating how silly and superficial Top Whatever lists are. Below the Top 100 are The Next 50, where readers can bask in luxurious comfort with a cushion of fifty extra honorable mentions to brace those few remainders I just couldn’t discard...

1. Casablanca (1942)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. Brazil (1986)
4. The Third Man (1949)
5. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
6. The Searchers (1956)
7. Notorious (1946)
8. The Rules of the Game (1937)
9. Vertigo (1958)
10. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
11. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
12. Grand Illusion (1937)
13. Citizen Kane (1941)
14. North by Northwest (1959)
15. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
16. Trouble in Paradise (1932)
17. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
18. Touch of Evil (1958)
19. Gone With the Wind (1939)
20. Bob le flambeur (1956)
21. Double Indemnity (1944)
22. The Lady Eve (1941)
23. Ikiru (1952)
24. Paths of Glory (1957)
25. Rebecca (1940)
26. City Lights (1931)
27. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
28. Yojimbo (1961) & Sanjuro (1962)
29. Modern Times (1936)
30. The Wages of Fear (1953)
31. Written on the Wind (1956)
32. King Kong (1933)
33. The Wild Bunch (1969)
34. The Godfather (1972)
35. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
36. The Thin Man (1934)
37. The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948)
38. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
39. Barry Lyndon (1975)
40. Rashomon (1950)
41. The Seventh Seal (1957)
42. To Be or Not to Be (1942)
43. Mon Oncle (1958)
44. Ace in the Hole (1951)
45. Brief Encounter (1945)
46. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
47. Fanny and Alexander (1982)
48. M. Hulot’s Holiday (1953)
49. The Fallen Idol (1948)
50. The Indiana Jones Trilogy (1981, ‘84, ‘89)
51. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
52. The Fly (1982)
53. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
54. Hara-Kiri (1962)
55. Alien (1979)
56. My Darling Clementine (1946)
57. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
58. Ran (1985)
59. Psycho (1960)
60. White Heat (1949)
61. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
62. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
63. Amadeus (1984)
64. The Thing (1982)
65. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
66. Goodfellas (1990)
67. Spartacus (1960)
68. Blade Runner (1982)
69. Rear Window (1954)
70. Umberto D. (1952)
71. Throne of Blood (1957)
72. Raging Bull (1980)
73. Ben-Hur (1959)
74. Red River (1948)
75. Schindler’s List (1993)
76. Taxi Driver (1976)
77. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
78. The Great Dictator (1940)
79. Ugetsu (1953)
80. Rififi (1955)
81. Videodrome (1983)
82. High and Low (1963)
83. Man of the West (1958)
84. House of Games (1987)
85. Army of Shadows (1969)
86. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
87. Black Narcissus (1947)
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89. The Big Red One (1980)
90. Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
91. Minority Report (2002)
92. The Palm Beach Story (1942)
93. High Noon (1952)
94. The 39 Steps (1935)
95. The Long Voyage Home (1940)
96. Rio Bravo (1959)
97. Jaws (1975)
98. The English Patient (1996)
99. Mildred Pierce (1945)
100. Doctor Zhivago (1965)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Next 50 (in alphabetical order):

The Age of Innocence (1993)
All that Heaven Allows (1955)
The Apartment (1960)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Aviator (2004)
Batman Begins (2004) & The Dark Knight (2008)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Brute Force (1947)
Captain Blood (1935)
Children of Paradise (1945)
The Conversation (1974)
Die Hard (1988)
Drunken Angel (1948)
The Exorcist (1973)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Gentleman Jim (1942)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Great Expectations (1946)
The Heiress (1949)
His Girl Friday (1940)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Jurassic Park (1993)
Kagemusha (1980)
The Kid (1921)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Limelight (1952)
Lolita (1962)
Memento (2000)
The Mist (2007)
Mr. Arkadin (1955)
Naked Lunch (1991)
The Naked Spur (1952)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Ninotchka (1939)
Oldboy (2003)
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Pickup on South Street (1953)
Playtime (1967)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Rushmore (1998)
Samurai Rebellion (1967)
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
The Smiling Lieutenant (1932)
The Star Wars Trilogy (1977, ’80, ’83)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Touchez pas au Grisbi (1954)
Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
The Virgin Spring (1960)