griggs's - Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 List
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Suspiria (1977)Dario Argento's Suspiria
Jessica Harper stars as Suzy Banyon, a young American ballet dancer who arrives at a prestigious European dance academy run by the mysterious Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett) and Miss Tanner (Alida Valli). But when a series of bizarre incidents and horrific crimes turn the school into a waking nightmare of the damned, Suzy must escape the academy's unspeakable secret of supernatural evil. - Director:
- Dario Argento
- Cast:
- Jessica Harper, Geoffrey Copleston, Stefania Casini
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Noel Coward's sensitive portrayal of what happens when two happily married strangers, played by Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, meet and their acquaintance deepens into affection and eventually into love. It is the story of two people, thrown together by the chance meeting of the title, helpless in the face of their emotions but redeemed by their moral courage. Over the years few films have equalled the compassion and the realism of Brief Encounter. - Director:
- David Lean
- Cast:
- Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway
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Army of Shadows (1969)L'armée Des Ombres
Melville's most personal film, rooted in his wartime experiences in the French Resistance, Army Of Shadows is a hard, tense drama, depicting man's capacity for both bravery and evil. In the winter of 1942-1943, as France exist s under German occupation, an underground cell operates in the shadows. In the clandestine world of the Resistance, the freedom fighters work against their enemies under the constant risk of betrayal, ordinary men and women in an extraordinary situation. Suffused throughout with a mood of foreboding, the suspense, heightened with directorial mastery, reaches its peak as the Resistance attempt to free a prisoner from the Gestapo headquarters, in one of Melville's trademark set-pieces of iconic action. - Director:
- Jean-Pierre Melville
- Cast:
- Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel
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From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) moves relentlessly towards her goal: taking the reins of power from the great actress Margo Channing (Bette Davis). The cunning Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend (Gary Merrill), her playwright (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife (Celeste Holm). Only the cynical drama critic (George Sanders) sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit. Thelma Ritter and Marilyn Monroe co-star in this acclaimed classic, which won six Academy Awards and received the most nominations (14) in film history. - Director:
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz
- Cast:
- Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders
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Limite (1931)Limit
In a rowboat to nowhere three nameless people - two women (Olga Breno and Tatiana Rey) and one man (Brutus Pedreira) indefinitely and aimlessly drift at sea. Some semblance of what led them to this sea of abyss is told via flashbacks - but even those don’t really explain how the hell these people ended up floating in a boat together. As such, the “story” made absolutely no sense and drug on forever - hence my need for a handful of speed. - Director:
- Mario Peixoto
- Cast:
- Olga Breno, Tatiana Rey, Raul Schnoor
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Humphrey Bogart stars as Dixon Steele, a screenwriter who is faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy best-seller. He enlists hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson to tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humour implicate him. Fortunately, lovely neighbour Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed. and their friendship ripens into love. m Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them? - Director:
- Nicholas Ray
- Cast:
- Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy
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Pink Flamingos (1972)John Waters' Pink Flamingos
When a pair of sociopaths (Mink Stole and David Lochary) with a habit of kidnapping women in order to impregnate them attempt to challenge her title, Divine resolves to show them and the world the true meaning of the word 'filth'. Incest, cannibalism, shrimping, and film history's most legendary gross-out ending - Waters and his merry band of Dreamlanders leave no taboo unsmashed in this gleefully subversive ode to outsiderhood, in which camp spectacle and pitch-black satire are wielded in an all-out assault on respectability. - Director:
- John Waters
- Cast:
- John Waters, Divine, David Lochary
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When Michael (Robert De Niro), Steven (John Savage) and Nick (Christopher Walken) are captured by the Vietcong, they are forced to play Russian Roulette by their brutal captors, who make bets on their survival. The experience of capture leaves them with terrible physical and spiritual wounds, and when Michael returns to Saigon to fulfill an old promise to one of his friends, he makes an unexpected, horrific discovery. Also featuring astonishing performances from Meryl Streep as the woman both Michael and Nick fall in love with, and John Cazale as their unhinged and insecure friend Stan, 'The Deer Hunter' is widely acknowledged as one of cinema's great masterpieces and contains some of the most memorable scenes in film history. - Director:
- Michael Cimino
- Cast:
- Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale
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A young girl named Teresa Banks is found brutally murdered. The FBI agents leading the investigation are drawn into a bizarre and dangerous world, and then disappear. The case is handed to Agent Dale Cooper. He knows it is only a matter of time before the killer strikes again. Welcome to Twin Peaks, an idyllic part of small-town America, one year later. A picture postcard setting, but hiding beneath the surface of this tranquil town lies an evil force. One that is praying on the towns most popular and beautiful student. Her name is Laura Palmer. - Director:
- David Lynch
- Cast:
- Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise, Mädchen Amick
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Apointed political satire, 'Duck Soup' is the Marx Brothers' funniest and most insane film. Groucho is Rufus T. Firefly, the hilarious dictator of mythical Freedonia. Harpo and Chico are commissioned as spies by Groucho's political rival, the calculating Trentino (Louis Calhern). The film contains many of the Brothers' famous sequences: the lemonade stand, a masterpiece of slow burn: the Paul Revere parody; the "We're Going to War" number, a beautiful spoof of '30s' musicals; the hilarious mirror scene; and a final battle episode that has been copied by everyone from Woody Allen to Mad Magazine. - Director:
- Leo McCarey
- Cast:
- Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx
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At a lavish ceremony hosted by her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antichrist), the wedding of Justine (Dunst, in an award winning performance) and her fiance Michael (Alexander Skarsgard, True Blood) is marred by fractious familial exchanges and Justine's battle with her own inner demons. Meanwhile, the mysterious planet Melancholia emerges from behind the sun and appears to be headed on an apocalyptic collision course with the Earth... - Director:
- Lars Von Trier
- Cast:
- Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland
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Man Marked for Death, 20 Years Later (1984)Cabra Marcado Para Morrer / Twenty Years Later
Eduardo Coutinho's classic 'Man Marked for Death, 20 Years Later' is regarded as a landmark of filmmaking. Voted the greatest Brazilian documentary of all time in 2017 and the fourth greatest Brazilian film ever made in 2015 by the Brazilian Association of Film Critics (Abraccine). Part fictionalised true story and part documentary, this extraordinary film sets out to tell the story of Joao Pedro Teixeira, leader of the Sapé Peasant League in northeast Brazil, murdered on orders from the landowners. Before the film could be completed, a right-wing military coup forced the closure of its production and the imprisonment of several members of the crew. Decades later, Coutinho returned to the original film location and, using surviving footage alongside interviews with members of the original cast, including Joao Pedro's wife Elizabeth, he created this compelling commentary on Brazilian history, politics and class conflict. - Director:
- Eduardo Coutinho
- Cast:
- Eduardo Coutinho, Ferreira Gullar, Tite de Lemos
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Join the legendary hero Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in one of the greatest screen adventures of all time with Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Accompanied by his feisty, independent ex-flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), the two-fisted archeologist embarks on a thrilling quest to locate the mystical Ark of the Covenant. Indy must discover the Ark before the Nazis do, and he has to survive poison, traps, snakes and treachery to do so. Explore the darkest jungles of South America, the bustling marketplaces of Cairo, and a top-secret submarine base with Indiana Jones as your guide to adventure. - Director:
- Steven Spielberg
- Cast:
- Harrison Ford, Frank Welker, Karen Allen
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Barbara Kopple's Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a gruelling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strike-breakers, local police, and company thugs. Featuring a haunting soundtrack—with legendary country and bluegrass artists Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, Sarah Gunning, and Florence Reece—the film is a heart-breaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to maximizing profit. Beyond the labour issues, the film also takes a hard look at the living conditions, health issues, and poverty faced by Harlan's residents, and the human toll that goes along with the mining industry. The tense confrontations between Eastover's slimy security goons and the unionizers are particularly gripping, with the threat of violence hanging thick in the air. Sometimes ugly, always absorbing, this is an important, enlightening social record, one that serves the highest calling of the documentary filmmaker's art. - Director:
- Barbara Kopple
- Cast:
- Norman Yarborough, Barbara Kopple, Houston Elmore
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A Touch of Zen (1971)Xia Nu
An unambitious painter named Gu (Shihjun) lives with his mother in the vicinity of an abandoned mansion rumoured to be haunted. In actuality, the mansion has become a hiding place for the warrior Yang (Hsu Feng) and her own mother, both taking refuge following the assassination of their loyal minister father by the wicked eunuch Wei of East Chamber. After the eunuch sends an army to pursue the escapees, the group fortify the mansion with traps and false intimations of the terrifying ghosts within. But even after, things take yet more unsettling turns...