1.
Citizen Kane -- simply because it's the best film ever made. Best camera work, best lighting, great story, tremendous cast mostly future classic stars then new to the movies, great scenes and images, and imaginitively approached from the perspective of a reporter on assignment to bring back the story of what made this "great man" tick. A rare delight from start to finish.
2.
Double Indemnity -- probably the best of the film noir, with a great cast featuring the underappreciated Fred McMurray in one of the rare villian roles that he did so well. Also the always great Edward G. Robinson. And the toughest of the tough broads from that era, Barbara Stanwick. Based on a Cain mystery story. A great script with great performances.
3.
The Best Years of Our Lives --One of the few films to look at soldiers returning from war and trying to adjust to peacetime. The whole concept came from a collection of photos of returning veterans in a popular magazine at the end of World War II. Great cast with the always first-rate Fredrick March with Mryna Loy as his wife; and the often underappreciated Dana Andrews in possibly their best roles ever. Yet the real star is an ex-GI who really did lose his hands in a training accident and became the only actor (at least at that time) to receive 2 Oscars for one role. Plus songwriter-great Hoagy Carmichael is one of the supporting actors, along with the always "slutty" Virginia May, and Steve Cochran, in a small but satisfyingly slimey role.
4.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre--great film directed by John Huston and co-starring his father, Walter, both of whom won Oscars for this film, the only father-son win for the same film ever. It also is probably the best role Tim Holt ever played before becoming just another Saturday afternoon cowboy star. And Bogart's greatest role as the crazed Fred C. Dobbs. Bogart's descent into madness is an amazing performance, yet there are times when Walter Huston steals the screen from him. Barton MacLane has a small but enjoyable part. Shot on location in Mexico, it also introduced Mexican actor Alfonso Bedoyu to US audiences.
5.
On the Waterfront--a grity, powerful, tough story ripped from the front pages of that period, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando in likely his best role and working so well again with Karl Malden. The scene between method actors Brando and Rod Steiger is one of the best ever film and greatly boosted Steiger's career. Lots of soon-to-be-familar faces in the cast, including Neimiah Persoff who without a word of dialogue brings so much to his brief role as the cabbie driving Brando and Steiger in that key scene. As good as Brando, Steiger, Malden, and others were in this film, I'm always blown away by Lee J. Cobb's performance as he chews up the scenery.
6.
The Maltese Falcon--Script written by John Huston, based on and closely following the book by Dashiell Hammett, my favorite mystery writer, starring Bogart in a role that helped cement his new role as a leading man after all the heavies he had played in so many movies. Great cast introducing Sydney Greenstreet, plus Peter Lorre and the always fun-to-watch Elisha Cook Jr. It was the first film John Huston ever directed and it's great from start to finish, primarily filmed in sequence with many scenes at key locations in San Francisco. Not a false moment from start to finish. Ward Bond and Barton MacLane are good as the cops Bogart toys with. Mary Astor is great playing against her usual type in films. Gladys George has a small but meaty part. Walter Huston played an uncredited role for no pay as the dying captain that brings the black bird to Spade's office.
7.
The Caine Mutiny--taken from a best-seller book, with Bogart in yet another great role as a man losing control and with McMurray again doing a standout performance as a villain. With a good cast, including elevating Van Johnson's role to one of his best performances ever. Bit but interesting parts by Lee Marvin, Claude Atkins, and Jerry Paris. But next to Bogie himself, the standout performance is by Jose Ferrer, another actor who I think never got near the public acclaim he deserved. I've always wondered if Ferrer had really broken his arm and was wearing a real cast in that film or if putting him in that cast was just a stroke of acting genius.
8.
Shane--Gawd, I love the fight scenes in this film! You can almost smell the blood and sweat! And when Alan Ladd and Van Heflin are fighting outside Heflin's cabin, the cattle and horses are going wild with panic! Always wondered how they got such realistic performance from cows and horses--learned later they had a man in a bear suit just out of camera-view that was frightening the livestock!
George Stevens was one hell of a director to come up with that. The way they shot the scenes that seemed to bring the distant mountains right down into the small farm and town. Plus Jack Palance as the cold-blooded killer who guns down Elisha Cook Jr. in the town's muddy street--it's one of the most memorable scenes in film.
9.
Angels with Dirty Faces and
The Roaring Twenties (tie)--both have James Cagney at the top of his form as Hollywood's leading gangster and also Bogart back when he was always playing the rat in gangster films. These also feature the best death scenes ever by Cagney (even better than
White Heat, as good as that was.) At the end of
Angels with Dirty Faces, he plays a coward who they have to drag to the electric chair. The question remains, did Rocky really break or did he grant priest Pat O'Brien's last request to play the coward so that the young members of the Dead End Kids would not continue to look up to a gangster. (You could extend this to a three-way tie with
Dead End, which introduced those young actors in roles they recreated for several years in gangster films and comedies. It also has Bogart as a tough gangster, Al Jenkins as his sidekick, and Joel McCrae, an out-of-work architect who dreams of a better life for that neighborhood. Marjorie Main has a short but meaty role as the gangster's mother.)
In the Roaring Twenties, Cagney dies more normally, shot down in the streets and dying in the snow at bottom of the steps of a church. It also has one of the great closing lines of any film. When the police ask, "Who was he?", his long-suffering girlfriend answers, "He used to be a big shot!."
10. Another tie, with
One, Two, Three! slightly ahead as one of the funniest films (and plots) I've ever seen. It was Cagney's last real film (despite some cameo roles later in his life) and he was at his comedic best. Unfortunately, it was this film that convinced him to retire when he had trouble delivering a lengthy and fast-paced speech in one scene. It's a great spoof of capitalism, communism, and people in post-war Berlin.
Another film that I like almost as much is
Viva Max! in which Peter Ustinov plays a modern Mexican general, Maximillian, who to impress his girlfriend decides to take his soldiers to San Antonio and recapture the Alamo. His small army is less than enthusiastic to say the least, not wishing to get shot to promote their commander's love life, and so it's up to his loyal sergeant, John Astin, to keep them in line behind thier commander. Jonathon Winters is in command of the Texas National Guard activated in response to the takeover, while dentist Kenneth Mars heads a private right-wing militia determined to retake the Alamo from the Mexican Army. Ustinov's production company almost went to war with the Daughters of the Texas Republic who operate and closely guard the honor of the Alamo. There were some funny things that went on in San Antonio when they were making that film that never got into the movie.
It's a better Alamo movie than that silly sack of stuff John Wayne put together some years earlier.
What also makes them good is that only three of the films--Shane, The Caine Mutiny, and Viva Max--are in color.