griggs's - Favourite 100 Films List
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An Autumn Afternoon / A Hen in the Wind (1962)Sanma no aji / Kaze no naka no mendori
Yasujiro Ozu's elegiac final film, 'An Autumn Afternoon', charts the inevitable eclipse of older generations by irreverent youth. Revisiting the story of his earlier masterpiece Late Spring (1949), Ozu once again casts Chishu Ryu in the role of Hirayama, the concerned father to unmarried Michiko. Harangued on all sides to marry off Michiko, Hirayama reluctantly prepares to bid his old life farewell. A cast of tragi-comic characters weaves seamlessly through this gently satirical portrayal of life's inevitable, endless cycle. - Director:
- Yasujirô Ozu
- Cast:
- Chishû Ryû, Shima Iwashita, Keiji Sada
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Rashomon (1950)Rashômon
A woodcutter experiences a horrific series of events - an ambush, rape and murder. In the telling of the tale however, each of the four participants give different views of what actually happened - is any of them telling the truth? Kurosawa's masterful film plays on the subjective nature of truth while unfurling a riveting tale of violence and greed. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori
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Writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), a former alcoholic, accepts a job as the winter caretaker for a hotel high in the Rocky Mountains, isolating him, his wife (Shelley Duvall) and their psychic young son until spring. But when the first blizzard blocks the only road out, the hotel's stored energy from evil past deeds begins to drive Jack insane...a and there may be no escape for his family in this haunting story of madness, memory and violence. - Director:
- Stanley Kubrick
- Cast:
- Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd
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Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) leads a group of Anglican nuns to a remote Himalayan range of mountains, there to set up a mission in an abandoned harem. This is her first position of authority and she finds both her physical and her spiritual limits being taxed as she has to maintain order and discipline in a claustrophobically hostile environment. Slowly but surely, however, the privations and hardship they must endure, the extremes of climate and the peculiar amorality of the local natives all combine to slowly corrupt the women's faith, pushing them further into jealousy, anger and madness... - Director:
- Michael Powell
- Cast:
- Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Flora Robson
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A National Emergency grips the US as the zombie population grows at an alarming rate. Two S.W.A.T. officers, a helicopter pilot and his girlfriend escape the city and take refuge in an abandoned shopping mall after securing it following a series of flesh-shredding confrontations with the undead. Their survival is threatened when a band of looters leave a door open allowing the zombies access to the mall once more and a final stand-off for survival must play out. - Director:
- George A. Romero
- Cast:
- David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger
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Godzilla (1954): Gojira
Made in 1954, 'Godzilla' was Japan's first foray into big budget sci fi - costing ten times the budget of the average Japanese feature and twice as much as Seven Samurai - released the same year. The film created a monster that would enter the lexicon of popular culture, spawn fifty years of sequels and inspire a new genre: the kaiju eiga or Japanese monster movie. Directed by Ishiro Honda, a friend and collaborator of Akira Kurosawa, and starring Takashi Shimura as the revered paleontologist who uncovers the horrible secret at the heart of the monster (Godzilla is a long dormant Jurassic beast awoken by the atom bomb), the original Godzilla is a fierce indictment of the atomic age. Sold to an American distributor, the film was cut, dubbed into English, re-titled Godzilla: King of the Monsters! and new scenes were added starring Raymond Burr as an American reporter observing the monsters rampage from the sidelines. All trace of the anti-nuclear message was excised in the American version. Now regarded as one of the great classics of cinema and still rated amongst the top twenty Japanese movies of all time, the original Godzilla is perhaps the definitive monster movie - both a bold metaphor for the atomic age and a thrilling tour de force of pioneering special effects. - Director:
- Ishirô Honda
- Cast:
- Takashi Shimura, Akihiko Hirata, Akira Takarada
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Peeping Tom (1960)Face of Fear
Mark (Carl Boehm), a focus puller at the local film studio, supplements his wages by taking glamour photographs in a seedy studio above a newsagent. By night he is a sadistic killer, stalking his victims with his camera forever in his hand trying to capture the look of genuine, unadulterated fear - an obsession that stems from his disturbing and terrifying childhood at the hands of his scientist father. Mark slowly becomes enamoured with Helen (Anna Massey), who lives with her blind mother (Maxine Audley) in the flat downstairs, but how long before he turns the deadly gaze of his camera towards her? - Director:
- Michael Powell
- Cast:
- Karlheinz Böhm, Anna Massey, Moira Shearer
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Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor) are a young American couple with a relationship on the brink of falling apart. But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani invites herself to join Christian and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. What begins as a carefree summer holiday in a land of eternal sunlight takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers invite their guests to partake in festivities that render the pastoral paradise increasingly unnerving and viscerally disturbing. From the visionary mind of Ari Aster comes a dread-soaked cinematic fairytale where a world of darkness unfolds in broad daylight. - Director:
- Ari Aster
- Cast:
- Florence Pugh, Linnea Larsdotter, Jack Reynor
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Trapped on her family's isolated farm, Pearl (Mia Goth) must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she's seen in the movies, Pearl finds her ambitions, temptations, and repressions all colliding in this stunning, technicolor-inspired origin story of X's iconic villain. - Director:
- Ti West
- Cast:
- Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright
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When British P.O.W.'s build a vital railway bridge in enemy-occupied Burma, Allied commandos are assigned to destroy it in David Lean's epic World War II adventure 'The Bridge on the River Kwai'. Spectacularly produced, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' captured the imagination of the public and won seven 1957 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Alec Guinness), and Best Director. Even it's the theme song, an old WWI whistling tune, the 'Colonel Bogey March', became a massive worldwide hit. 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' continues today as one of the most memorable cinematic experiences of all time. - Director:
- David Lean
- Cast:
- William Holden, Tsai Chin, Alec Guinness
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Alexander Mackendrick's last Ealing comedy and certainly one of the best, William Rose received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Sir Alec Guinness stars in one of his most vivid disguises, in this killingly funny black comedy gem. The villains plot to kill the old lady who discovers their robbery. But the pensioner is not as harmless as she seems! A rare colour film from Ealing in the '50s, it was premiered in 1955 at the end of the Ealing Green period. - Director:
- Alexander MacKendrick
- Cast:
- Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker
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Bruce Willis stars as New York City Detective John McClane, newly arrived in Los Angeles to spend the Christmas holiday with his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia). But as McClane waits for his wife's office party to break-up, terrorists seize control of the building. While the terrorist leader, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his savage henchman (Alexander Godunov) round up hostages, McClane slips away unnoticed. Armed with only a service revolver and his wits, McClane launches his own one-man war. - Director:
- John McTiernan
- Cast:
- Bruce Willis, Chuck Riley, Bonnie Bedelia
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Yesterday strangers, today inseparable soulmates. But separate they must in just a few hours. Jesse and Celine are making every moment count, pouring as much living as they can into the time 'Before Sunrise'. From Richard Linklater comes another smartly observed tale of young people at a crossroads. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play twenty-somethings who meet on a train in Europe, sense a connection and explore after-hours Vienna together. The people, places and allure of the city become their sudden itineraries. Love is their destination. On the way there's the mutual sharing of hopes, jokes, dreams, worry and wonder. It's a day to linger in their memories. And a valentine to young love forever. - Director:
- Richard Linklater
- Cast:
- Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Andrea Eckert
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The Godfather (1972)Mario Puzo's The Godfather
In late 1940's New York, Mafia 'Godfather' Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) gathers his three sons around him for daughter Connie (Talia Shire)'s wedding; the hot-headed Sonny (James Caan), ineffectual Fredo (John Cazale) and war hero Michael (Al Pacino), who chooses to distance himself from the family 'business'. When Vito is shot and wounded for refusing to sanction a rival family's heroin sales on his territory, Sonny temporarily takes over and embarks on bloody gang warfare. This results in him being killed in an ambush, and Michael finds himself nominated to succeed the ailing Vito. - Director:
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Cast:
- Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan
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The 400 Blows (1959)Les Quatre Cents Coups
13-year-old Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) can't seem to do anything right. His dysfunctional parents yell at him, his spiteful schoolteacher picks on him and luck just never goes his way. Despite his efforts at patience, one day it all becomes too much and Antoine throws in the towel, choosing to take his chances on the Paris streets. At times joyous and at others bitterly hard, his new life brings a newfound freedom - one that Antoine will follow up to its painful, poignant and beautiful conclusion... - Director:
- François Truffaut
- Cast:
- Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, Claire Maurier
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