The Movie Forums Top 100 of All-Time Refresh: Countdown

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I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
And there's the metaphorical mask!

Persona is a good film, I keep meaning to watch it again some day.

Silence of the Lambs I watched for a second time for a hall of fame not that long ago and I thought it was a very well done film. I think the things it is most remembered for - the two serial killers - were the least of it. It's Jodie Foster's performance and the way it was shot that I thought were the best things about it. Not on my list though.



I saw both movies twice. Silence of the Lambs is a creepy and well-written masterpiece. It's kind of funny how this movie was made by the same director who directed the famous Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense. I haven't seen that yet (but there's no way in hell it'll hold a candle to Scorsese's The Last Waltz).


Persona didn't fully impress me the first time around. It was well filmed, but some things didn't make sense to me. After my second time around with The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and Persona, I gave Persona a higher rating (although Wild Strawberries would overtake it that time). It's a beautiful film with a lot to say, but it's not perfect. The Seventh Seal deserves to be placed higher and I'm disappointed that it only managed to be an honorable mention.





Persona was #11 on the MoFo '60s List while The Silence of the Lambs was #16 on the MoFo '90s List as well as #75 on the MoFo Horror List.
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Persona was my #18. An all too easy pick for a favourite Bergman, perhaps, but it really is astounding just how much he's able to pack into a tight 90 where most of the film is just Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann (the latter of whom gives a silent performance to boot) chilling on an island and breaking down one another's defences (and, by extension, the reality of the film itself). It really is the kind of film that single-handedly justifies why the medium was created.

The Silence of the Lambs is a film I've always regarded as pretty good more than anything else (especially considering how poorly certain aspects have aged), but I have to respect the strength of its strengths.
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Hell yeah, two great films!

The Silence of the Lambs was my #6. I've seen it dozens of times, but I recently rewatched it and it's pretty much a perfect film. Every performance is on point, the way they build up everything until the climatic ending is perfect, the direction and editing is flawless... everything! Every interaction between Starling and Lecter is a masterclass in verbal and non-verbal acting, but although I know that a lot has been said and will be said about Foster and Hopkins, but I think the supporting cast of Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, and Anthony Heald deserve as much praise.

As for Persona, that's a film I saw a couple of years ago (December 2018) and it kinda left me puzzled, but in a good way. About a week later, I had to revisit it, and that's when it really sunk in. This is what I wrote then, but the bottom line is that I found myself so affected and drawn by it. Unfortunately, it was one of the last films I "pushed" out of my Top 25 (had it at #33), but I'm so so happy to see it here.
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The Silence of the Lambs is a really nice movie, i loved it, even if was out of my 25.
Btw Anthony Hopkins is a Stonehenge of the cinema, in my top25 with another movie, big respect for him.



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Yay! Persona is my favorite Bergman. What a mesmerizing experience. If someone asks me for an example of 'pure' cinema, I'm going with that movie. Silence of the Lambs is fantastic too, of course, though I'm surprised it's this high on the list. Guess I need to revisit it soon!
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My Summary:

Seen: 47/56
My list: 4/25


My List  



That screams Silence of the Lambs
Oo yes, good shout.

The mask bit... Who's Afraid of Viriginia Woolf? Persona?
Good job, you guys got it immediately.

For those who don't know, "Persona" literally translates to "mask." Hannibal's mask is...uh...a little more literal. And a lot grosser. I may have made a tiny delightful little noise when I realized these two would be paired together.

Also, one's tongue being "rare" was pulling double duty: it sounds like a food term, but it also refers to Elisabet's muteness.



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I don't think Lambs is a good enough film to have made it as far as 46, its more of a legendary performance(s) , iconic even, by Anthony Hopkins as Lector and of course Jodie Foster as Strarling. Both deserving of their Oscars. Several very memorable scenes too, like Lectors escape, and the initial scenes between Lector/Starling.

I think Manhunter is a much better overall movie, which unfortunately probably won't make it.
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I've not seen Persona.


Silence of the Lambs (1991)

My favorite scenes were the interaction between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice, which were brilliant!...Especially Hannibal's cold reading of Clarice at their first meeting and his uncanny abilities of perception.

Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal, he sure created a memorable character and did an amazing job of being intense, and weird, and yet likable too. It was quite the performance and he won an Oscar for it.

I really wanted to see him and Clarice have some sort of bond and that's why their scenes together were my favorite. It was a pretty great script idea that a psycho killer would respect this 'little' FBI trainee. I say 'little' because the cinematography goes to lengths to show Clarice surrounded at different times by really tall men, like in the elevator scene. That's not an accident, it shows us that physically she is surrounded by people much stronger than her, which then makes her task all the more daunting.

Jodie Foster won an Oscar for Best Actress and she was sublime in this movie! It's a pity that most fans don't give her the credit due. Her acting was always sincere (even Hannibal appreciated that aspect of her character). In Jodie Foster's reactionary close up shots to Anthony Hopkins, she convinces us, that the horror of Hannibal is real.


The sets: I'm a sucker for set detail and man is this movie loaded with cool sets! I loved the psychiatric jail where we first see Hannibal. The heavy cobble stones and rusting metal made it look like a long forgotten dungeon where these derelicts of society languished in darkness.

The second temporary holding cell for Hannibal was memorable too. It was this large cell surrounded by vastness of the otherwise empty room.

I really like Buffalo Bill's house it was loaded with weird looking stuff, one could spend hours just examining each frame for hidden details Good lighting too in there. Notice how his basement holding pit was made of the same big cobblestones that was in Hannibal's cell?



Persona is very good but I like quite a few of Bergman's movies more. Of course that could easily change.

Silence of the Lambs is one of my very favorite thrillers but didn't quite make my ballot.



Even though it might sound like a diss, Silence of the Lambs is just great entertainment. It's the rare movie i'd consider just about perfect that I see more as a vehicle for narrative than making a statement as a piece of 'cinema'. Even a snob like myself can appreciate these sort of things when they are done this good.


Persona is one of Bergman's best and so, by default, is one of the best movies ever. A number of his movies seem to, almost by accident, brush up closely to horror. Not as genre, but in their great sense of doom. Yet, Bergman does not need to fabricate monsters, he only needs to tell us about the futility of existence, the silence of God, the fallacy of identity. He frightens through what his films understand about everyone watching in the audience, that they may not even know about themselves. That they are nobody special and one day they will all die. Persona is one of his many films that cut straight through to these terrors, and it does it just through a conversation between two women, where one woman talks and the other listens, and the silence that surrounds them contains everything worth being frightened of. Greatness.



The Silence of the Lambs is great, though I'm not as down on it as everyone else is. And this isn't to say that I have any issues with it per se. It just hasn't grabbed me the way many of my other favorite horror films have. Regardless, it's a strong, well-acted film and I'm happy to see it on here.

Persona was number 6 on my ballot. It was like a bolt of lightning when I saw it for the first time. Not too far off the beaten path, but it contained enough surreal scenes for it to remain excellent. It shook me awake and convinced me that cinema was much deeper than what I had initially thought. When I initially watched it though, I was so hung over on trying to decode what every scene in it meant. I made a rough interpretation (one I'm not a fan of), but eventually decided that I much prefer feeling the emotions and feel of the film. As for what it all means, I'll let others worry about that. I know that the film moved me and made me feel something which no other movie had ever made me feel and that's enough for me.

My ballot:
1.
2.
3.
4. The Tree of Life (#62)
5.
6. Persona (#45)
7.
8.
9.
10. Come and See (#54)
11.
12. Andrei Rublev (#67)
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
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The Silence Of The Lambs is a solid thriller that is well worthy of a place on this countdown. Good to see it turn up in the upper half.

Never seen Persona, maybe one day.

Seen: 45/56 (Own: 18/56)
My list:  


Faildictions (Eternal vsn 1.0):
44. Tôkyô monogatari (1953)
43. In A Lonely Place (1950)



I didn't like The Silence of the Lambs the first time I saw it. It has grown on me since then but nowhere near enough for it to have a shot at my ballot.

Persona is an excellent movie and I even liked it enough to put it on my personal top 100 (at #98) back in 2017. I think if I redid my personal 100 today, it wouldn't make the cut. It's not even my favorite Bergman. As good as it is and as much as I like it, I never considered it for my ballot.

My Ballot:
5. Her (#94)
9. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (#92)
25. Clay Pigeons (One-Pointers)