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.
The Wild Bunch (1969)
8/10
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Starring: William Holden, Warren Oates, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, Ben Johnson
Peckinpah at his violent best. In the Southwest of 1913, Pike Bishop (William Holden) is leader of 'The Wild Bunch', a gang of outlaws coerced by a Me... Read more
The Straight Story (1999)
8/10
Director: David Lynch
Starring: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Everett McGill, Harry Dean Stanton
In a gentle, G-rated change of pace that still features his trademark fascination with rural American quirkiness, director David Lynch recounts the tr... Read more
The Dreamers (2003)
7.2/10
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Michael Pitt, Eva Green, Louis Garrel, Robin Renucci, Anna Chancellor
Aka "Les Innocents". Director Bernardo Bertolucci's provocative, sensual drama centers on American exchange student Matthew (Michael Pitt) who befrien... Read more
Harold and Maude (1971)
8/10
Director: Hal Ashby
Starring: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Cyril Cusack, Vivian Pickles
With the idiosyncratic American fable "Harold and Maude", countercultural director Hal Ashby fashioned what would become the cult classic of its era.... Read more
Breaking the Waves (1996)
7.9/10
Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard, Katrin Cartlidge, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier
The extraordinary story of a young, simple-minded, God-fearing Scottish woman who willingly takes on lovers in the belief that it will cure her paraly... Read more
Frank Lloyd Wright (1997)
7.8/10
Director: Ken Burns, Lynn Novick
Starring: Frank Lloyd Wright
An absorbing study of U.S. architect Frank Lloyd Wright's tumultuous life and career. Using all manner of original photographs, plans, home movies of... Read more
Local Hero (1983)
7.5/10
Director: Bill Forsyth
Starring: Peter Riegert, Burt Lancaster, Fulton MacKay
The delicate ecological balance of a small unspoiled Scottish village is threatened by the plans of a wealthy oilman. 'Local Hero' is a tender, very f... Read more
If.... (1968)
7.7/10
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan
A daringly anarchic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in 'A Clockwo... Read more
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
8.3/10
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans, Jennifer Connelly, Ellen Burstyn
As powerful an anti-drug statement as it is a drama, director Aronofsky's ('Pi') visually hypnotic film graphically tracks the downward spiral of four... Read more
Babette's Feast (1987)
7.8/10
Director: Gabriel Axel
Starring: Stephane Audran, Jean-Philippe Lafont, Jarl Kulle
Awarded the Best Foreign Language film of 1987 by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Stephane Audran is Babette, an exiled French cook-... Read more