griggs's - Favourite 100 Films List
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North by Northwest (1959)Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest / Breathless / In a North West Direction / In a Northwesterly Direction / The CIA Story / The Man in Lincoln's Nose
Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is not a spy. And he's certainly no murderer. Nevertheless, Thornhill's a wanted man: enemy agents want him dead, the police want him arrested, and a cool, mysterious blonde (Eva Marie Saint) just plain wants him. A victim of mistaken identity, Thornhill can't afford to make any mistakes of his own - so he embarks on a death-defying run for his life. Relentlessly pursued by plane, train and automobile, Thornhill's cross-country chase finally ends atop Mt. Rushmore where, if he doesn't watch his step, he could be in for a terrible fall. - Director:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast:
- Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason
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Raging Bull (1980)The Life of Jake La Motta
"Raging Bull" is arguably the finest work from the Scorsese and De Niro partnership. De Niro gives and amazing portrayal of a man whose animal side lurks just beneath the surface, ever ready to erupt. Vivid and unremitting in its uncompromising brutality and honesty, the fight sequences are famed for their realism. Violent throughout, this film is a testament to Scorsese's and De Niro's skills, creating a thoroughly absorbing film about such an unlikable character. Renowned for throwing himself into the roles of his character, De Niro went on a diet to gain fifty pounds during production for the role of the faded star. - Director:
- Martin Scorsese
- Cast:
- Robert De Niro, Ted Husing, Cathy Moriarty
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It's 1987 and Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is living the American dream. He has a great job, he's handsome, he's athletic and has the attention of many beautiful women. However, Patrick has a dark secret that he keeps hidden from those around him; Patrick is a psychopath. Dissatisfied with this charmed life, Patrick spends his evenings prowling the streets looking for victims; whether they are his business associates or strangers he meets in passing, he makes no distinction. Cultivating his serial killer persona as much as his yuppie lifestyle, the two sides of Patrick's life soon begin to merge and he begins to wonder where one side of his life ends and the other begins. - Director:
- Mary Harron
- Cast:
- Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Powerful, compelling and deeply shocking, 'Kids' spends twenty-four frenetic hours with a group of New York teenagers. Skateboarders Telly and Casper hang out, shoplift, do drugs and seduce girls. Jennie (Chloe Sevigny) follows the pair across the city, desperate to confront them with a terrible truth. - Director:
- Larry Clark
- Cast:
- Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, Chloë Sevigny
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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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Casablanca: easy to enter, but much harder to leave, especially if your name is on the Nazis' most-wanted list. A top that list is Czech Resistance leader VIctor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), whose only hope is Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a cynical American who sticks his neck out for no one... especially Victor's wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), the ex-lover who broke his heart. So when Ilsa offers herself in exchange for Laszlo's safe transport out of the country, the bitter Rick must decide what's more important - his own happiness or the countless lives that hang in the balance. - Director:
- Michael Curtiz
- Cast:
- Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid
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