Dante's Inferno (1911)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
Der Golem (1920)
Dr. Caligari (1920)
The Phantom Carriage (1921)
Nosferatu (1922)
Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
The Phantom Of The Opera (1925)
Metropolis (1927)
Show People (1928)
Modern Times (1936)
All good to great. And all inferior to Man With a Movie Camera in that they are not quite as seminal, daring, experimental, avant-garde, etc., etc. but hey, some of them are close to Vertov's masterpiece!
I could break 'em all down because I've seen all, but let's take just a few.
I've been a sort of advertiser for this film for some time because most of my cinephile friends think it's only good. I think it's exceptional; the special effects, the scope, and the hellish imagery all add up to quite an experience. In that regard, I can definitely see why you think it's both entertaining and fascinating. But I have a hard time seeing it among the best silents ever. Maybe if we want to go year by year, it's undoubtedly the best film of 1911. But does it really have the qualities of a groundbreaking work? I wonder.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
A very good film. Pretty brutal, how Hyde murders the guy and all. But again, special effects, a little bit of mood. That's it.
The Phantom Carriage (1921)
At this point I remembered that you actually meant these films as more entertaining and fascinating than The Man With a Movie Camera, and I'm sure how it aligns with what I was coming from originally, which was, presumably, that Vertov's film was a masterpiece for the ages. Either way,
The Phantom Carriage is a seminal piece, though, in a different category, I believe. It's one of the greatest, most humane silents out there.
Is this your favorite Chaplin? I wonder which one is my favorite. I never loved Chaplin as much as other well-regarded filmmakers of the time. But it's funny how Modern Times, kind of like Ozu's I Was Born But... is both timeless and anachronic. I mean, 1936 (and even 1932) is long past the emergence of talkies. But Chaplin's stubbornness as to keep his films silent for as long as possible gives them a sort of timeless charm. I think The Kid and The Gold Rush are my favorites of his but I sure have to rewatch City Lights and a few others.
So yeah, great list. Some absolute masterpieces there. And not a single bad film, what's most important.
Yeah, I guess I feel that it doesn't necessarily matter. As I pointed out elsewhere, L'Avventura debuted at No.2 when it was just 2 years old and it has remained in the conversation 60 years later. Hiroshima, Mon Amor was 3 when it debuted at 11 and LYaMarienbad (No.26) had been out just over a year. And they're all still in the conversation.
Yeah, but firstly, the fact they've been doing it years ago, too, doesn't mean it's a good thing to do.
And secondly, all three of these are shattering masterpieces.
L'Avventura was booed at Cannes (but then again, every second film was) and it was doing the
Psycho thing the same year as Psycho while being a much more accomplished film, artistically.
L'Eclisse is still better, though, and all.
But the point is,
LYaMarienbad is one of the best films ever made and it was groundbreaking when it was released. It was something new, incredible, something that you looked at and could right away say it's worthwhile the title. And while they should have waited a little bit before including it, it doesn't hurt too much that they didn't. Now, something like
Get Out or
PoaLoF has nothing of the monumental masterpiece about it. These are films like any others. Like hundreds of other films.
Personally, I'm shocked that this list, compiled from submissions from different critics, has not turned out to be the definitive list of the best movies of all time and at the same time align exactly with my personal tastes.
Joking aside, it's both desirable and impossible to have a list agglomerated from so many other lists be so good. I mean, the list is pretty
good so the weird inclusions of new and ill-fitted films seem even more so jarring.