Yearly First Viewing Top Tens

https://www.listchallenges.com/every...the-first-time

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Not necessarily in order-

Love this one and just watched it again about two weeks ago. If I had joined the most recent HoF this was one of the films I was seriously considering. I'm a little leery of recommending it after I recommended Monte Hellman's companion flick, The Shooting, a while back and it went over like a lead balloon.

An interesting idea. Looking at this past year, I'm going to run into the opposite problem from the usual top 10 of the current year list (just so many good first viewings).

Culling from the short list in no particular order (and some of the decisions/cuts feeling arbitrary):
The Red and The White (1967)


Cabaret (1972)


Successive Slidings of Pleasure (1974)


The Third Part of the Night (1971)


The Devil's Trap (1962)


Burning (2018)



The Underground Railroad (I know it's not a movie, but I'm lumping it in)


The Iron Rose (1973)


Columbus (2017)


A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021)



Initial shortlist/Honorable mentions (~the order I watched them):
A Night of Knowing Nothing
The Underground Railroad
The Red and The White
After Yang
Elle
Drive My Car
Cabaret
All That Jazz
Successive Slidings of Pleasure
The Third Part of the Night
The Devil's Trap
Eugenie (1970)
Burning
The Iron Rose
Songs my Brothers Taught Me
Columbus
Tower
Aftersun

I think All That Jazz might have longer legs with me than Cabaret, but just going off of the first viewing. Aftersun, I really want to re-watch in the near future.

Deprisa, Deprisa (Saura, 1981)
Elvira Madigan (Widerberg, 1967)
A Degree of Murder (Schlöndorff, 1967)
La Reine Margot (Chéreau, 1994)
Walker (Cox, 1987)
Europa, Europa (Holland, 1990)
Mr. Klein (Losey, 1976)
Kes (Loach, 1969)
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Mazursky, 1969)
The Third Part of the Night (Zulawski, 1971)

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Big yes to The Iron Rose. It took me a few viewings before I really started to love it, but I made sure to visit Amiens just to walk around that cemetery when I was in France. Couldn't find the crypt they crawl into unfortunately.

Yeah, I didn't need multiple viewings, but it benefitted from sitting in my head for the past couple of months. It managed to surpass Requiem for a Vampire which I saw for the first time this past year as well. And I think given the other films I put on that top 10, i definitely feel more comfortable saying it fits in that company.


I see you also watched The Third Part of the Night for the first time this year. Was that an interesting coincidence? I know it's getting a German(?) blu-ray release in 2023, but I don't think I'm aware of it making any indie theater circuits the past year (at least in the US), the way Possession seemed to get. It's just been on my watchlist for a number of years now.

The Trial and Apocalypse Now are long running favorites of mine.
Raise the Red Lantern was a weird HBO staple for a few months way back during my formative years right before I went off to college, so it holds a weird spot in my consciousness. Though I haven't revisited it in probably 20 years. Is there a good blu-ray of it now? I don't think I could bring myself to revisit it on anything less than 1080p.

I'm still in the process of reviewing and rating a bunch of December first-time watches that could probably make this list, but aside from those, this has been my top first-time watches of 2022 (in no order)...

Feature Films
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Parenthood (1989)
Black Girl (1966)
The Heiress (1949)
Whiplash (2014)
The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021)

Documentaries
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018)
Night and Fog (1955)

Short Films
One Week (1920)
Strings (2013)
Where You Are (2016)

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I don't have a list of the older movies I watched last year, but here are some that I liked:


I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Fruitvale Station
Steve Jobs
Eyes Wide Shut
Marnie
One Fine Day
World of Tomorrow

Requiem for a Vampire is another that needs a rewatch. I did enjoy it the first time, but that unusually long rape sequence didn't really sit very well. As far as Rollin goes, Fascination is king and Shiver of the Vampires is a strong second. He's never really done anything I haven't liked to some extent.


I went on a brief Zulawski binge after watching The Most Important Thing: Love which would probably top my rewatches this year if I did a list for those. Sometime the hysterics in his films puts me off them a little bit, although I enjoyed The Third Part of the Night more than Diabel.

I don't know about blu ray, but I found a good copy of the film online when I watched it.

1. Werckmeister Harmonies
2. The Sacrifice
3. The Turin Horse
4. Manila in the Claws of Light
5. The Duellists
6. The Great Silence
7. Z
8. Love Exposure
9. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
10. L'Argent (1983)

Honourable mentions: Good Morning, The Cranes Are Flying, Matewan, Bay of Angels, Lola (1961), Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, Missing, Je Tu Il Elle, Siberia (2020), An Elephant Sitting Still, The Shop on Main Street, The Sweet Hereafter, La Cérémonie, Asako I & II, Where Is My Friend's House?, The Passion of Anna, Floating Clouds, Eastern Condors, Dog Star Man, Certain Women, May, Lancelot du Lac, Taipei Story, The Ascent, Le Petit Soldat, Joint Security Area, A Geisha, Le Cercle Rouge, Tokyo Sonata, Nymphomaniac: Vol I, Nymphomaniac: Vol. II, Greed (1924}, A Trip to the Moon, Ariel, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Harlan County U.S.A., The Wind Will Carry Us, The Man Without A Past, Blue (1993), Boys State, Throw Down, Heaven Knows What, Purple Noon, Beastie Boys Story, Mona Lisa, Mephisto, The Whispering Star, Early Summer, Red Psalm, Underground, Diary of a Country Priest, Head-On (2004), Never Rarely Sometimes Always, A Raisin in the Sun, The Hidden Fortress, The Bad Sleep Well, Dante's Inferno (1911), They Shoot Horses Don't They?, All About Lily Chou-Chou

Took almost a fortnight to do this and I still think that, aside from Werckmeister Harmonies basically being a lock for the #1 spot, I could still shuffle around #2-#10 not just among themselves but with at least a couple of dozen other titles in the honourable mentions. It's just been a really good year for watching movies.

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2023 mofo all - first timers

01 jagten / 2012, thomas vinterberg /
02 ida / 2013, pawet pawlikowski /
03 the irishman / 2019, martin scorsese /
04 the father / 2020, florian zeller /
05 aftersun / 2022, charlotte wells /
06 beau travail / 1999, claire denis /
07 spider-man: across the spider-verse / 2023, joaquim dos santos, justin k. thompson, kemp powers /
08 martin / 1977, george a. romero /
09 sound of metal / 2020, darius marder /
10 the driller killer / 1979, abel ferrara /
11 skinamarink / 2022, kyle edward ball /
12 hello mary lou: prom night II / 1987, bruce pittman /
13 soul / 2020, pete docter /
14 Lo squartatore di New York / 1982, lucio fulci /
15 a separation / 2011, asgahr farhadi /

There's a top 10 in there somewhere...

My favourite first time watches this year: (excluding 2023 films and short films):

No Way Out 1950
High and Low 1963
Lilya 4-ever 2002
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On 2021
When the Cat Comes 1963
I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes 1948
Storm Warning 1951
The Harder They Fall 1956
The Bigamist 1953
The Dark Mirror 1946

War and Peace
Drunken Angel
Hausu
Shoah
Quo Vadis Aida
Barefoot Gen
Fried Green Tomatoes
John Wick
Kanal
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

1. The Piano Teacher
2. Branded to Kill
3. Arsenic and Old Lace
4. The Horse Thief
5. Little Big Man
6. The Unbelievable Truth
7. Breaking Away
8. Carlito's Way
9. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
10. Hellzapoppin'

Honorable Mentions:

The Servant
Nosferatu the Vampyre
The Quiet Earth
Entranced Earth
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
The Red Angel
Sherman's March
Raising Arizona
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
Seven Chances
Titicut Follies
Elevator to the Gallows
Sawdust and Tinsel
Curse of the Demon
Paper Flowers
21 Up
28 Up

Havent seen The Duelists, but everything else in that top 10 is a banger.

2023:

1. Blue Spring
2. Past Lives
3. Phoenix (2014)
4. Beau Travail
5. Weathering With You
6. RRR
7. The Virgin Suicides
8. The Mission (1999)
9. The Naked Kiss
10. BlackBerry

Honorable Mentions: Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, Coherence, Deep Cover, The Grey Fox, The Quiet Girl