griggs's - Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 List
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Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)Ugetsu
In 16th century Japan, amidst the pandemonium of civil war, potter Genjuro (Mori Masayuki) and samurai-aspirant Tobei (Ozawa Sakae) set out with their wives in search of wealth and military glory, respectively. Two parallel tales ensue when the men are lured from their wives: Genjuro by the ghostly charm of Lady Wakasa (Kyo Machiko); Tobei by the dream of military glory. - Director:
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Cast:
- Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka
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Parasite (2019)Gisaengchung
Kim Ki Taek's (Song Kang Ho) family are all unemployed and living in a squalid basement. When his son, Ki Woo, gets a tutoring job at the lavish home of the Park family, the Kim family's luck changes. One by one they gradually infiltrate the wealthy Park's home, attempting to take over their affluent lifestyle, but as their deception unravels events begin to get increasingly out of hand in ways you simply cannot imagine. - Director:
- Joon-Ho Bong
- Cast:
- Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Jo
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Edward Yang's multi-award-winning film looks at several turbulent weeks in the life of the Jian family. Husband and father NJ (Nien-Jen Wu) is a partner in a failing software company, which might just save itself by teaming up with an innovative Japanese games designer. Meanwhile his wife Min-Min (Elaine Jin) has gone off to a mountain retreat with a dubious guru, his teenage daughter Ting Ting (Kelly Lee) is getting her first, rough lessons in love, his young son Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang) is asking difficult questions and getting into trouble at school - and his mother-in-law has suffered a stroke and lies in a coma. In the middle of all the confusion NJ runs into his childhood sweetheart Sherry, the girl he jilted twenty years earlier, and starts to wonder about starting over. - Director:
- Edward Yang
- Cast:
- Nien-Jen Wu, Ray Fan, Elaine Jin
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A Man Escaped (1956)Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut
Based on the true story of Resistance fighter Andre Devigny, who was imprisoned and sentenced to death by the Nazis during the Second World War, the film reconstructs his actual cell at the Lyons fortress of Montluc, and follows his meticulous plans for escape. This totally involving and thrilling tale of courage and faith is all the more authentic for its use of non-professional actors and Bresson's spare style. - Director:
- Robert Bresson
- Cast:
- François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice Beerblock
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The General (1926)The Engine Driver
Train engineer Johnny Gray (Buster Keaton) is turned down when he tries to enlist in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War as his occupation is deemed too important. When his train (The General) is stolen by Union soldiers so that it can be used to attack Confederate forces, only Johnny and his girl Annabelle Lee can save the train and warn the Confederates about an impending attack. - Director:
- Clyde Bruckman
- Cast:
- Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender
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Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)C'era una volta il West / There Was Once the West
Sergio Leone's monumental epic 'Once Upon a Time in the West' ranks among the five or six all-time Western masterpieces. The picture itself is as big as its Monument Valley locations, as grand as its fine, distinguished cast. Henry Fonda plays the blackest character of his long career. He's Frank, the ruthless, murderous psychopath who suffers conscience pangs after annihilating an entire family. Jason Robards is the half-breed falsely accused of the terrible slaughter. Charles Bronson plays the harmonica playing man who remembers how his brother was savagely tortured. - Director:
- Sergio Leone
- Cast:
- Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale
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When Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young African-American man, visits his white girlfriend's (Allison Williams) family estate, he becomes ensnared in the more sinister, real reason for the invitation. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behaviour as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he could have never imagined. - Director:
- Jordan Peele
- Cast:
- Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener
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Black Girl / Borom Sarret (1966)La noire de
Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene was the first Sub-Saharan African filmmaker to achieve international recognition, and is widely regarded as the father of African cinema. His first major work. Black Girl, is the uncompromising story of Diouana, a young Senegalese nanny whose hopes of an exciting life in France are dashed when her white employers expect her to work as their servant. Also included is Sembene's directorial debut, the short film Borom Sarret, the first ever indigenous Black African film. An allegorical tale exploring poverty and inequality, it charts a day in the life of a hard-up cart driver in Dakar, whose good deeds are rewarded with great injustice. - Director:
- Ousmane Sembene
- Cast:
- Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Toto Bissainthe, Robert Marcy
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Tropical Malady (2004)Sud pralad
Garlanded with awards, Apichatpong's visionary film exists in dual realms, exploring connected themes of love and desire in a radically different way. A fractured love story is interrupted by a feverish night-time odyssey into the heart of the jungle where shape-shifting spirits and tigers abound. The conscious and the subconscious, the modern and the ancient, reality and myth; all become magically entwined in this hypnotic, mysterious drama. - Director:
- Apichatpong Weerasethakul
- Cast:
- Banlop Lomnoi, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Huai Dessom
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Vagabond (1985)Sans toit ni loi
Sandrine Bonnaire won a Best Actress Cesar for her portrayal as Mona - a young and defiant drifter in this tragic story. Using a largely non-professional cast Varda recollects Mona's story through flashbacks of those who encountered her, producing a splintered portrait of an enigmatic woman. She's not a kind girl but courageous while wandering in the winter. She announces in 1984 the collective conciousness of homeless people dying from the cold. - Director:
- Agnès Varda
- Cast:
- Sandrine Bonnaire, Macha Méril, Stéphane Freiss
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The House Is Black (1963)Khaneh siah ast
A revelation of staggering force, lyrically composed by one of the leading poets of the 20th century, Forough Farrokhzad. Her first and only film, it depicts the lives and bodies of people tragically deformed by leprosy. A film of stirring and powerful images, and a beautifully, tragically poetic narration that heavily influenced the modern Iranian cinema of Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf. - Director:
- Forugh Farrokhzad
- Cast:
- Forugh Farrokhzad, Ebrahim Golestan, Hossein Mansouri
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On one side is an army of gunmen dead-set on springing a murderous sidekick from jail. On the other is Sherriff John T. Chance and his two deputies: one a drunk, the other a cripple. Place your bets! John Wayne is Chance in 'Rio Bravo', a lean Western classic packing solid heroics around a strong emotional core. He's joined by Dean Martin as the deputy coming off a two-year drunk, Walter Brennan as the old coot whose fiery spirit outmatches his hobbled stride, Ricky Nelson as a youngster out to prove himself by joining the lawmen and Angie Dickinson as a woman with a past who hopes to rope Chance. - Director:
- Howard Hawks
- Cast:
- John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson
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Come and See (1985)Idi i smotri / Ubit Gitlera
"Come and See" is one of the greatest war films ever made and one of the finest achievements of Soviet cinema. A devastating account of the Nazi occupation of Belarussia during World War II, it tells the story of a young boy's abrupt loss of innocence when he joins the Soviet resistance and is thrust headlong into the brutal horrors of combat. Featuring terrifyingly authentic battle scenes and poetic, almost surreal imagery, director Elem Klimov has fashioned a vivid and unforgettably powerful portrait of the terrible atrocities committed by men in the name of war. - Director:
- Elem Klimov
- Cast:
- Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Lauciavicius
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The Godfather: Part II (1974)The Godfather: Part 2 / Son of Godfather / The Second Godfather
Al Pacino heads the star cast as Michael Corleone, heir to the criminal empire established by his Mafioso father, the late Don Corleone. The time is mid-1940's: Michael is now in charge of all gambling activities in Nevada, making certain that any and all political or mob enemies are quickly bought off, compromised, or disposed of. Throughout the film, Michael's travels are paralleled with the early experiences of his father, played in flashbacks by Robert DeNiro. - Director:
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Cast:
- Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall
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The Mother and the Whore (1973)La maman et la putain
After the French New Wave, the sexual revolution, and the upheavals of May 1968 came the near religiously revered magnum opus by Jean Eustache. In his long-unavailable body of work, ranging from documentaries about his native village to closely autobiographical narrative films, Eustache pioneered a forthright and fearless brand of realism. The pinnacle of this innovative style, 'The Mother and the Whore' follows Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Leaud), a Parisian pseudo-intellectual who lives with his tempestuous girlfriend, Marie (Bernadette Lafont), even as he begins a dalliance with the sexually liberated Veronika (Frangoise Lebrun), leading the three into an emotionally turbulent love triangle. Through daringly sustained long takes and confessional dialogue, Eustache captures a generation navigating the disillusionment of the 1970s, and in the process achieves an intimacy so deep it cuts. - Director:
- Jean Eustache
- Cast:
- Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Françoise Lebrun
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