Paul's Favourites
The 7th Arts's highest level of achievement can be judged alongside great literature, great music, and great painting, with many filmmakers creating enduring masterpieces.
The list of film titles below may not all be enduring masterpieces, but I have however, fond lingering memories of all of them. They all fit the criteria of what I feel films can or should do, to not only be well crafted, but also to entertain, inform, enlighten and more often than not, take the viewer down roads less travelled...
Can only hope you also will discover or rediscover some viewing pleasures among my all-time favourites' listed below.
Romuald and Juliette (1989)
Director: Coline Serreau
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Firmine Richard, Pierre Vernier
Aka 'Mama, There's a Man in Your Bed'. Romuald (Daniel Auteuil) is the big-shot head of a yoghurt factory whose indifference to his buxom, black clean... Read more
Samsara (2001)
7.8/10
Director: Pan Nalin
Starring: Christy Chung, Shawn Ku
Indian born filmmaker Pan Nalin makes his directorial debut with this sensual, elegant look at sex and spirituality. Tashi (Shawn Ku) is a brilliant y... Read more
Santa Sangre (1989)
7.7/10
Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Starring: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell
Unforgettable imagery is used to tell the story of two circus performers, an armless woman and her insane son who acts as his mother's hands. Jodorows... Read more
Sleuth (1972)
8/10
Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz
Starring: Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine
Mystery tour-de-force based on Anthony Shaffer's play starring Laurence Olivier as an eccentric writer of mystery novels coercing his wife's lover Mic... Read more
Small Time Crooks (2000)
6.7/10
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Hugh Grant, Jon Lovitz, Michael Rapaport, Tracey Ullman, Woody Allen, Elaine May
Woody Allen directs and stars in this wonderful comedy playing a career petty thief who hatches a scheme to buy a cookie store with wife Tracey Ullman... Read more
Songcatcher (2000)
7.2/10
Director: Maggie Greenwald
Starring: Janet McTeer, Aidan Quinn, Jane Adams, Pat Carroll
A film about a woman whose drive to pursue the things she believes in leads her on an unexpected path to self-discovery. It is 1907, and musicologist... Read more
Stalingrad (1992)
7.5/10
Director: Joseph Vilsmaier
Starring: Dominique Horwitz, Thomas Kretschmann
One of the most realistic depictions of war ever filmed, this stunning epic chronicles the six-month siege of the Russian city by German forces in Wor... Read more
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
8.5/10
Director: Billy Wilder
Starring: Buster Keaton, Erich Von Stroheim, Fred Clark, Gloria Swanson, Jack Webb, Nancy...
Billy Wilder's classic drama stars Gloria Swanson as reclusive silent movie queen Norma Desmond. Sharing a mansion with her live-in butler/former husb... Read more
Tales of Ordinary Madness (1983)
6.9/10
Director: Marco Ferreri
Starring: Ben Gazzara, Ornella Muti, Susan Tyrrell
Based on the short stories of American writer Charles Bukowski ('Barfly'), this paints a passionate, steamy portrait of a grizzled poet (Ben Gazzara)... Read more
That'll Be The Day (1973) / Stardust (1974)
Director: Michael Apted
Starring: David Essex, Adam Faith, Larry Hagman, Keith Moon, Rosemary Leach, Ringo Starr,...
'That'll Be The Day' tells the story of a young man (David Essex) growing up in the dreary working-class world of Britain who comes of age and finds h... Read more