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.
Ballad of Narayama (1983)
7.9/10
Director: Shohei Imamura
Starring: Ken Ogata, Sumiko Sakamoto
In a small 19th-century Japanese village, residents who reach the age of 70 are banished to the top of Mt. Narayama to die so that they don't become a... Read more
El Norte (1983)
7.7/10
Director: Gregory Nava
Starring: David Villalpando, Zaide Silvia Gutierrez
'The North'. An independent American film that became a hit, the powerful story of a brother and sister who must leave their oppressed country of Guat... 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
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
Burden of Dreams (1982)
8/10
Director: Les Blank
Starring: Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Mick Jagger
A fascinating and chilling account of the making of Werner Herzog's 'Fitzcarraldo', a project beset by a series of disasters while shooting in the jun... Read more
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
8.3/10
Director: Godfrey Reggio
The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance", an apt summation of this mesmerizing collection of wonders both natural and man-made. S... Read more
The King of Comedy (1982)
7.8/10
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Diahnne Abbott, Tony Randall, Sandra Bernhard
Robert De Niro is an obsessive stand-up comic performing in front of cardboard cut-outs in is mum's basement. Jerry Lewis is the host of a talk show t... Read more
Man Of Flowers (1982)
7.2/10
Director: Paul Cox
Starring: Alyson Best, Chris Haywood, Norman Kaye, Werner Herzog
A haunting, sexually frank serio-comedy about a repressed man (Norman Kaye) whose obsessions include art, classical music and a young woman he hires t... Read more
Cutter's Way (1981)
6.9/10
Director: Ivan Passer
Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Heard, Lisa Eichhorn, Nina Van Pallandt, Stephen Elliott
One of the most original American films of the last decade. Alex Cutter (John Heard) is the Vietnam veteran disfigured in the war. When his best frien... Read more
Diva (1981)
7.3/10
Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix
Starring: Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, Frederic Andrei
A breathtaking series of visual images in this stylish romantic thriller; at the heart of the film is an opera-intoxicated 18-year old mail carrier wh... Read more