Lyra, you don't like Vertigo? You don't like Casablanca? You are approaching hobbesian levels of wrongness there.

And what Wyatt said about The King of Comedy. If I were to extend my list to a top 10 it would definitely be in there.

I don't like Vertigo....well, not 'dislike', more like feel coldly detached from it whenever I see it.

Anyway:

1. The Godfather
2. Godfather II
3. A Matter Of Life And Death
4. Amadeus
5. Blade Runner

Like others, it's impossible to actually pin down The Best Films In The Universe Ever to such a small number. There are so many others. I mean they're great films anyway, but I'm gradually, personally warming to the pace, style and art of Sergio Leone's 'Dollars' Trilogy. It's as though something about them has clicked enormously with me after so many years.

E10 Rifle wrote:

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I've never been able to see anything in it that is specific to the sixties. It is just a film about two useless no-hopers that could have been set in any era.

That's a curiously wrong-headed way of bigging it up (if someone had plugged it to me like that it'd have put me off). It's a film about friendship and failure, and even loneliness, and has a really poignant ending. It's not everyone's cup of tea, humour-wise, but has more brilliant and memorable lines than almost any other film I can think of.

My favourite line from Withnail & I is:

"We're out of booze; what are you going to do about it?"

But it's a pretty slight sort of film; on a similar theme, I think "Midnight Cowboy" is better.

Eh. I can't really do this properly tonight but I think Casablanca is... hollow. As I said, for many of the reasons that Eco's hypothesis is based on. It's a mess of cliches. There's nothing emotionally honest in it, for me. I realise that Eco's argument is possibly aiming to make the case that as a film it is paradoxically purer than most, because its nature as a magpie's pick and mix reflects the very essence of filmmaking. But I can't like it. I think it's about as interesting and meaningful as something Tarantino decided not to make because come on, how could anyone have even the most superficial kind of relationship with it and still retain a shred of honesty with themselves.

Vertigo is ice cold, as Ian said. I can't engage with it or with anyone in it or with anything about it. I find it deeply suspicious. And it's not a reaction against its reputation,. I'm not afraid of the cliched supposition that it's possible for critics to vote on the 'greatest films of all time' in all seriousness. I think Citizen Kane is one of the best films ever made, ever. It actually is not overrated in any way. So it's not that. But still, Vertigo, no. It won't let the viewer in. I think it's deeply untrustworthy and not in a good way.

The Godfather
Das Boot
Matador
Diva
12 Angry Men

"But still, Vertigo, no. It won't let the viewer in. I think it's deeply untrustworthy and not in a good way."

That's pretty much exactly what I like about it. That said, I'd take North By Northwest or Rear Window over it.

Vertigo is a fantastic movie on so many levels. Its portrayal of San Francisco is superb, a lot of Vertigo's quality rests on how well Hitchcock got the city.

Hitch was great at integrating and featuring a sense of place into his stories, it often has as big a part in his movies as the main male and female protagonists. "To Catch a Thief" is as much about the French Riviera as is it about Grace Kelly and Cary Grant. The colorful languor of Vermont in Fall is the real star in "The Trouble Wih Harry". "Rear Window" is defined by the zeitgeist of Manhattan apartment courtyards in mid-summer.

In Vertigo, there is an interplay between the different slices of San Francisco that echoes and reinforces the dramatic layers in the storyline and in James Stewart's varying moods and psyches. The sedate beauty of its urban and physical landscape sets the comfort level of an apparently pleasant and tranquil life. The juxtaposition of the urbane upper-class neighborhoods with the adjacent seedier and more mysterious neon-lit districts (Nob Hill and the Tenderloin) parallels the duality of Kim Novak's characters. The harsh icy dark waters that surround the city stand in for the dark corners of his inner mind.


In sharp contrast "Casablanca"s surroundings are a cardboard mess, the decors are more like the interiors of west coast theaters dressed up in pseudo-morish themes than Moroccan, the supporting actors and side characters are a gallery of grotesque 1950s Hollywood Frenchman cliches. This is one of several weaknesses of this movie; I wholeheartedly agree with Lyra there, "Casablanca" is way overrated.

That's pretty much exactly what I like about it. That said, I'd take North By Northwest or Rear Window over it.

Two crackers deserving of inclusion in any 'best of all time' list. Obviously so. This 'Top 5' films limitation is starting to bite. When I posted last night, my eyes immediately alighted on another choice on the thread - The Wild Bunch. A masterpiece. And when I flicked around the channels, what do I see? Goodfellas.

Narrowing it down is impossible.

Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

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Das Boot

Gah!

Another one I'd forgotten about. This could quite easily make it into my top 5 too. I suppose I forgot about it because I saw it serialised on BBC2. It's fantastic - still probably the best thing I've ever seen on TV, of any genre. The claustrophobia in the depth charge scene is incredible.

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In Vertigo, there is an interplay between the different slices of San Francisco that echoes and reinforces the dramatic layers in the storyline and in James Stewart's varying moods and psyches. The sedate beauty of its urban and physical landscape sets the comfort level of an apparently pleasant and tranquil life. The juxtaposition of the urbane upper-class neighborhoods with the adjacent seedier and more mysterious neon-lit districts (Nob Hill and the Tenderloin) parallels the duality of Kim Novak's characters. The harsh icy dark waters that surround the city stand in for the dark corners of his inner mind.

Sure, I get that, I really do. Maybe it's because I didn't like San Francisco when I went there, but all this is just what I can't engage with. But I know people do, I mean, my friend Sharon went there specifically to do the location tour, and so on.

as of 9/5/08....films that still move me...In no particular order:

Stroszek
Bicycle Thief
This is Spinal Tap
Blazing Saddles
Fast Runner
Good, Bad & Ugly
Cool Hand Luke
Slap Shot
Das Boot
Midnight Cowboy

"Vertigo" is a beautiful film, and it's also a really, really nasty film. It's incurably romantic, and it's also about the pitch-dark heart of male desire. It starts with "each man kills the thing he loves", and then says "wait, wait, that's not even the half of it". Linking the destructive power of James Stewart's yearning for Kim Novak with his fear of falling is perfect. Works on many levels, as they say. I can see what people mean about coldness, but if it didn't have that freeze placed on it, it would burn you alive. Made twenty years later, it would have been a slasher movie or something.

Agree about the non-overratedness of "Citizen Kane". It regularly appears in my top five, and would have permanent residence in a "best" rather than "favourite" list, of course.

I almost might have to watch Vertigo again at the weekend at this rate.

I wish this was at least a top 10 list being asked for. Although listmaking is awful, really, we ought to know that, but then maybe it has gone beyond awful and come back round to OK so long as it's done in a semi-ironic way, or something.

No, surely anything that's x% shit becomes at least 10x% shit if done in a semi-ironic way?