SEVEN SAMURAI 1954 JAPANESE

Most have seen the stable TV scheduling favourite : The Magnificent Seven well here is the film which it inspired. In fact, it influenced many others besides. Watching it today it is still possible to understand why.  The film has a pace and energy which is the hallmark of any good action movie and this is simply one of the best.  Poor peasantry seek out a Samurai warrior to defend them from bandits ... Great action sequences are combined with powerful charaterisations reflecting on the nature of strengh and weakness. So real it almost feels like it was flimed in 16th century Japan.

LA GRANDE ILLUSION 1937 FRANCE

Jean Renoir' movie is ostensibly a movie about captured French troops during the Great War but what we have instead  is one of a much more complex and enjoyable nature which transcends its war  theme.  . No simplistic tale of everyone realising some fuzzy common humanity but one which relfects on the never changing nature of humanity. For what emerges is that the officers have more in common with each other regardless of nationality and likewise the common soldiers. The whole scheme of things is upset as new understandings of old realities emerge.  One of the greats of French cinema. 

TOKYO STORY 1950 JAPAN

On first meeting Ozu can baffle a Western audience and I suspect will be incomprehensible to a modern one raised on CGI and fast action and even faster story lines. Ozu is the complete opposite and deliberately so.  He brought Zen to the cinema , not in a preachy way but in the technique he used to film with.  Stories are told through a Japanese medium for example camera angles are often from floor level or held in such a way to reflect stillness rather than movement.  Such movies glide along slowly at their own pace and thus the act of watcching becomes more of a meditation then a tradional movie going experience.   The story ? Family, the beautifully observed , and universal tale, of aging parents coming from the country to the big city to visit grown up children with their own lives and own ideas. Beautiful and moving. 

CITY LIGHTS 1931 USA

Chaplin made a number of classic long features and this is one of his best. The simple tale of a blind girl selling flowers and a tramp who secretly loves her turns into a wonderful meditation on the nature of love, the beloved and the beholder.  That is not to say it is not great fun as well , the comic genius of Chaplin is there for all to behold, but what we also see is an innocence revisited in our viewing. some have said that the final scene is one of the most beautiful in all cinema, who am I to disagree.  

THE SEARCHERS 1955 USA

Not just rightly thought of as one of John Ford's greatest works but one of the greatest films of all time. Wayne won an Oscar many years later for True Grit but many consider this film his finest. Playing a disturbed and bitter Confederate veteran out West visiting his brother's settled family we observe a man at odds with both himself and the world.  Subsequent events compel him onto a man hunt which is as much a search for himself as the kidnapped.  Perfectly cast with the landscapes unforegttable, and an ending that will surprise and move.   A triumph.

Les Enfants du Paradis 1944 France

Rightly rated as one of the greatest French films of all time and consistently voted so by critics of that country.  Love and longing in the world of 19th Century Paris theatre.   A  beautifully observed tale of reality and fantasy , of theatrical illusion  and personal tradgedy and all filmed against the very real backdrop of the Nazi occupation.  Three hours of classic film making. 

WILD STRAWBERRIES 1957 SWEDEN

Fellini Classic marking for many the end of the Italian neo realism.  A tale of a circus strong man and a small female clown of a different strenght. Italy never looked so much like a continent in this meditation on the nature of what it means to be strong. Touching and moving.

LA STRADA 1954 Italy

Fellini Classic marking for many the end of the Italian neo realism.  A tale of a circus strong man and a small female clown of a different strenght. Italy never looked so much like a continent in this meditation on the nature of what it means to be strong. Touching and moving.

THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC 1926 FRENCH/DANISH

Another perennial on lists of greatest films ever made and perhaps the greatest film of the interior life. This film has now moved to legend, its conception and execution , and then loss and rediscovery  worthy of a film in its own right.  The sur titles are all from the recorded history of St. Joan's trial thus adding to its already documentary feel.  Carl Dryer made a film on average every decade and the craftmanship of his direction is clear to all , not least his use of close ups and obscuring the viewer. this film looks avant garde and is true to the real meaning of the term in that ot could have been filmed last year.   If you allow this film too it can transport you to an inner world in a way few films can.

BICYCLE THIEVES 1945 Italian

A film which needs little by way of introduction as it has become, for many, the greatest Italian movie ever made. Its regular appearance in 'top 10' lists of all time greats might put off some as much as attract. Fear not, I have yet to meet anyone who is not profoundly moved by what is essentially a simple tale of an impoverished Italian family in the ruins of a city still emerging from the World War II. It is one of the foremost examples of a school of Italian cinema known as Neo Realism. This used unprofessional actors and the streets for a set. They reflected the often harsh reality of Italian life post war and the simple but real struggles of the conflict's survivors.  For dads with boys of a certain age it will have a definitive resonance as it is as much about that relationship as with the main plot device.