griggs's - Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 List
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La Dolce Vita (1960)The Sweet Life
Perhaps his most famous film, La Dolce Vita slices into the decadent amoral core of Roman society with Fellini's trademark attention to detail and spectacular photography. Marcello Mastroianni plays a gossip columnist (the term 'paparazzi' derives from the in a film) who aspires to be a more serious writer but knows he never will be, because like society, he is fascinated by the decadent hedonist pursuits which are seemingly everywhere. The Vatican was appalled by the film, but the public adored it, relishing the images Fellini fed them, most notably the now infamous scene of Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg frolicking in the Trevi Fountain. - Director:
- Federico Fellini
- Cast:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée
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Winner of three Academy Awards including best picture, "Moonlight" is a breath-taking coming-of-age story and the best reviewed film of the year. "Moonlight" follows the story of Chiron (Ashton Sanders) from his early childhood in his depressed Miami neighbourhood to adulthood in Atlanta as he navigates the dangers of drugs, violence, family, love and sexuality. - Director:
- Barry Jenkins
- Cast:
- Mahershala Ali, Shariff Earp, Duan Sanderson
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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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Based on the true life best seller 'Wiseguy' by Nicolas Pileggi and backed by a dynamic pop/rock oldies soundtrack, critics and filmgoers alike declared 'GoodFellas' great. It was named the best film of the '90s by the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of film critics, and it earned 6 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. - Director:
- Martin Scorsese
- Cast:
- Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci
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The Third Man (1949)The 3rd Man
Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) a naive writer of pulp westerns, arrives in Vienna to meet his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) but finds that Lime has apparently been killed in a suspicious accident. Martins, too, curious for his own good, hears contradictory stories about the circumstances of Limes' death and as witnesses disappear he finds himself chased by unknown assailants. Complicating matters are the sardonic Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), head of the British forces, and Limes' stage actress mistress, Anna (Alida Valli). Will Martin's curiosity lead him to discover things about his old friend that he'd rather not know? - Director:
- Carol Reed
- Cast:
- Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli
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Mory, a cowherd who rides a motorcycle mounted with a cow's skull, and Anta, a university student, have met in Dakar, Senegal's capital. Alienated and disaffected with Senegal and Africa, they long to go to Paris and work up different con schemes to raise the money. Mory steals clothing and money from a wealthy gay man who had brought him home, and he and Anta book passage on a ship to France. - Director:
- Djibril Diop Mambéty
- Cast:
- Josephine Baker, Magaye Niang, Mareme Niang
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The Gleaners and I (2000)Les Glaneurs Et La Glaneuse
In 2000 Agnes Varda travelled the France countryside and the markets of Paris to the study the lives of a collection of foragers and scavengers called The Gleaners. This remarkable collection of people insist of making use of materials that the public have so easily discarded. Varda admits to being a gleaner of sorts herself, which gives this honest and intriguing documentary a very special connection. - Director:
- Agnès Varda
- Cast:
- François Wertheimer, Agnès Varda, Bodan Litnanski
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Shortly after that 1927 release, an entire quarter of Lang's original version was cut by Paramount for the US release, and by Ufa in Germany, an act of butchery very much against the director's wishes. The excised footage was believed lost, irretrievably so - that is, until one of the most remarkable finds in all of cinema history, as several dusty reels were discovered in a small museum in Buenos Aires. Argentina in 2008. Since then, an expert team of film archivists has been working at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung in Germany to painstakingly reconstruct and restore Lang's film. - Director:
- Fritz Lang
- Cast:
- Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich
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Andrei Rublev (1966)Andrey Rublyov
Widely regarded as Tarkovsky's finest film, 'Andrei Rublev' charts the life of the great icon painter through a turbulent period of 15th Century Russian history, a period marked by endless fighting between rival Princes and Tatar invastions. Made on an epic scale, it does not flinch from portraying the savagery of the time, from which, almost inexplicably, the serenity of Rublev's art arose. The great set-pieces - the sack of Vladimir, the casting of the bell, the pagan ceremonies of St. John's night and the Russian crucifixion are tours-de-force of visceral film-making. - Director:
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- Cast:
- Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Klara Rumyanova, Ivan Lapikov
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This Powell and Pressburger classic is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. Vicky Page (Moira Shearer), a young ballerina, becomes torn between her love for composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and artistic devotion to her profession, which is dominated by impresario Lermontov. - Director:
- Michael Powell
- Cast:
- Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer
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My Neighbour Totoro (1988)Tonari no Totoro
While their mother recovers from an illness, Satsuki and her little sister Mei (voiced in English by Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning) get away from it all in an idyllic rural retreat. Far from the bustle of the city, they discover a mysterious place of spirits and magic, and the friendship of the Totoro woodland creatures.
Conceived as a family film devoid of conflict and suffused with the carefree pleasures of the summertime, My Neighbour Totoro sees Hayao Miyazaki create a parable of friendship and imagination populated with unforgettable characters. A universal classic for all generations, My Neighbour Totoro shows Japanese animation's famous Studio Ghibli at its very best, and is an elegy to two ever-fading miracles: the fairytale world of childhood and the disappearing countryside.- Director:
- Hayao Miyazaki
- Cast:
- Hitoshi Takagi, Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto
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Journey to Italy (1954)Viaggio in Italia
Widely misunderstood and shamefully denigrated at the time of its original release, but now recognised as not simply one of Rossellini's greatest films but as one of the key works of modern cinema, 'Journey to Italy' is a deceptively simple piece. There is little plot to speak of: a marriage is breaking up under the strains of a trip to Italy, and we watch. But in its deliberate rejection of many aspects of 'classic' Hollywood narrative and its stubborn pursuit of a quite different aesthetic, its meandering story line creates space for ideas and time for reflection. - Director:
- Roberto Rossellini
- Cast:
- Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders, Maria Mauban
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L'Avventura (1960)The Adventure
The plot concerns a yachting trip by a small group of jaded socialites, including Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), an aging architect who sold out for easy money long ago, his mistress Anna (Lea Massari), and her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti), who doesn't fit in with the wealthy jet-setters' dissolute ethics. When Anna disappears during a tour of a volcanic island, Claudia initially blames Sandro's emotionally barren behavior toward her. As they search the island, however, Claudia and Sandro grow closer and - when it is apparent that Anna is gone forever - become lovers. Unfortunately, Sandro cannot find anything decent inside himself and betrays Claudia with a local prostitute. Caught in the act, Sandro has a heartrending breakdown on a desolate beach, but Claudia silently forgives him. - Director:
- Michelangelo Antonioni
- Cast:
- Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti, Lea Massari
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In this Academy Award-nominated Best Picture, two widowed mothers - one white, Beatrice Pullman (Claudette Colbert), and one black, Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers) - decide to pool their talents and go into business together, opening a waffle shop. A surprising financial success, their business is quickly franchised into a chain of coffee shops that market their unique product line - Delilah's waffle recipe and Bea's maple sugar-candy hearts. But their success is a mixed blessing because it complicates their relationships with their own daughters. Ashamed of her mother, Peola seeks a new life by passing for white. Bea's love for her daughter is tested when she and Jessie fall for the same man. - Director:
- John M. Stahl
- Cast:
- Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Rochelle Hudson
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Sansho Dayu (1954)Sansho the Bailiff
When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually wrenched apart by vicious slave traders. Under Kenji Mizoguchi's dazzling direction, this classic Japanese story became one of cinema's greatest masterpieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil. - Director:
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Cast:
- Kinuyo Tanaka, Kisho Hanayagi, Kyôko Kagawa
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