griggs's - Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 List

An innocent young man, János (Lars Rudolph), sees violence break out after an isolated village is inflamed by the arrival of a circus and its peculiar attractions: a giant whale and a mysterious man named "The Prince".

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Patricio Guzman travels 10,000 feet above sea level to the driest desert on earth for this hugely-praised documentary. Here, the sky is so translucent that it allows astronomers to see the boundaries of our universe.

Yet Chile's Atacama Desert climate also keeps human remains intact: pre-Columbian mummies; explorers and miners; and the remains of disappeared political prisoners from the years of the Pinochet regime. Women sift the desert soil for the bones of their loved ones, while archaeologists uncover traces of ancient civilizations and astronomers examine the most distant and oldest galaxies. Melding celestial and earthly quests, feature is a gorgeous, deeply moving, and personal odyssey into astronomy, archaeology, geology and human rights.

Their re-working of Chaucer's epic fourteenth century tale, largely set in wartime Kent, centres on American army sergeant John Smith, British soldier Dennis Price and landgirl Shiela Sim who, before making a modern-day pilgrimage to Canterbury, solve the bizarre mystery of a man who pours glue over the hair of village girls at night.

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Stomping, whomping, stealing, singing, tap dancing, violating. Derby-topped hooligan Alex (Malcolm McDowell) has a good time - at the tragic expense of others.

His journey from amoral punk to brainwashed proper citizen and back again forms the dynamic arc of Stanley Kubrick's future-shock vision of Anthony Burgess' novel.

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A landmark work in the history of the cinema, Der letzte Mann represents a breakthrough on a number of fronts.

Firstly, it introduced a method of purely visual storytelling in which all intertitles and dialogue were jettisoned, setting the stage for a seamless interaction between film-world and viewer. Secondly, it put to use a panoply of technical innovations that continue to point distinct ways forward for cinematic expression nearly a century later. The lesson in all this? That a film can be anything it wants to be... but only Der letzte Mann (and a few unforgettable others) were lucky enough to issue forth into the world under the brilliant command of master director F. W. Murnau. His film depicts the tale of an elderly hotel doorman (Emil Jannings) whose superiors have come to deem his station as transitory as the revolving doors through which he has ushered guests in and out, day upon day, decade after decade. Reduced to polishing tiles beneath a sink in the gents' lavatory and towelling the hands of Berlin's most vulgar barons, the doorman soon uncovers the ironical underside of old-world hospitality. And then - one day - his fate suddenly changes...

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The first Iranian film to win the Palme d'Or, this austere, emotionally complex drama by the great Abbas Kiarostami follows the enigmatic Mr.

Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) as he drives around the hilly outskirts of Tehran looking for someone who will agree to bury him after he commits suicide, a taboo under Islam. Extended conversations with three passengers (a soldier, a seminarian, and a taxidermist) elicit different views on mortality and individual choice. Operating at once as a closely observed, realistic story and a fable populated by archetypal figures, Taste of Cherry challenges the viewer to consider what often goes unexamined in everyday life.

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With their marriage in pieces Anna and Mark's tense relationship has become a psychotic descent into screaming matches, violence and self-mutilation.

Believing his wife's only lover is the sinister Heinrich (Heinz Bennent), Mark (Sam Neill) is unaware of the demonic, tentacled creature that Anna (Isabelle Adjani) has hidden away for liaisons in a deserted apartment and will stop at nothing to protect.

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Max Renn (James Woods) is looking for fresh new content for his TV channel when he happens across some illegal S&M-style broadcasts called "Videodrome".

Embroiling his girlfriend Nick (Deborah Harry) in his search for the source, his journey begins to blur the lines between reality and fantasy as he works his way through sadomasochistic games, shady organisations and body transformations stunningly realised by Oscar-winning makeup effects artist Rick Baker.