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.
Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (Blu-ray) (1972)
7.9/10
Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Klaus Kinski, Ruy Guerra, Del Negro, Helena Rojo
Based on the journals of Brother Gaspar de Carvajal, and tells a hallucinatory tale of Spanish colonialists searching for El Dorado, the legendary cit... Read more
Dersu Uzala (Blu-ray) (1975)
8.2/10
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Yuri Solomon, Maxim Munzuk
Kurosawa's remarkable, personal tale of the friendship between a wise old man and a young Soviet explorer, filmed in the beautiful expanse of Siberia,... Read more
Betty Blue (Blu-ray) (1986)
7.4/10
Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix
Starring: Beatrice Dalle, Gerard Darmon, Jean-Hugues Anglade
Jean-Jacques Beineix has restored 62 minutes to his romantic masterpiece ('Version Integrale') expanding the adventures of Betty and Zorg. There are s... Read more
The Vikings (1958)
7.1/10
Director: Richard Fleischer
Starring: Ernest Borgnine, Janet Leigh, Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis
Sweeping adventure saga of the Vikings' invasion of England centers on a Viking warrior prince (Kirk Douglas) and a former slave (Tony Curtis), bitter... Read more
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
7.8/10
Director: Joel Coen
Starring: Jennifer Jason Leigh, George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, Charles D...
A wonderful, whimsical graft of Homer's "The Odyssey" telling the tale of three chain gang escapees in 1930s Mississippi. George Clooney is the slick... Read more
Beyond Rangoon (1995)
6.6/10
Director: John Boorman
Starring: Patricia Arquette, Frances McDormand, Spalding Gray
An extraordinary, brilliantly executed, not-to-be-missed story of a young American doctor who, tormented by her past, travels to Burma with her sister... 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
Crash (1996)
6.4/10
Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Rosanna Arquette, Deborah Kara Unger
James Spader, Holly Hunter and Rosanna Arquette are a motley assortment of car crash survivors seeking more and more perverse thrills to communicate,... Read more