City Lights (1931)

#1: City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)

I realized later that I probably could have put Citizen Kane here and maybe even pulled it off. I got kind of cute with these last five picks—an embedded Top 5 for my #5, a four-hour movie for #4, a made-up trilogy for #3, and a matched pair of stellar performances for #2. I wanted my #1 to represent a singular, multifaceted talent at the top of his form, and that's Orson Welles and Citizen Kane without a doubt.

But it's also Charlie Chaplin and City Lights. The guy wrote it, directed it, edited it, stars in it, and he wrote all the music too. And it's great music. The talkies had already arrived and his moment was slipping away, but Chaplin still had a few good ones in him—his best, in fact—along with some strikingly innovative ideas about the place and purpose of sound. This is not a silent picture; it is, as billed, "a comedy romance in pantomime," and sound is a significant part of it even if dialogue isn't, for which he still uses (sparingly) the intertitle cards. It is original in ways that few pictures not done by Chaplin are.


I decided a long time ago that this was my answer to the question movie lovers always end up asking one another sooner or later, and not only because it's given me so much plain satisfaction over the years. I know Chaplin often seems antiquated and rinky-dink and way, way old school to later generations, including my own—I've even had the painful experience of watching faces glaze over after they have politely let me force this on them. So don't take this necessarily as a recommendation—it's not for everyone (although I will say you owe it to yourself if you've never seen it. I'll go that far. I can't help myself). Think of it rather as straight reporting. Just the facts, ma'am.

The truth is there's no movie I've seen more than this. It's not even close. At some point in the home video era it came to be my own little Christmas Eve ritual, and I return to it again and again, year after year, even knowing how exhausted much of it has become for me—which could not possibly be otherwise with a comedy. And no, it's not really a Christmas movie. It's a typical Chaplin tale of urban down-and-outers attempting to survive even as they bear up under the casual contempt of their loutish betters, and it's filled with artfully imagined, elaborate set pieces of physical comedy that are simply a pleasure to look at unfolding: the absurd unveiling of a civic statue, antics around a suicide attempt by the side of a reservoir, adventures in fine dining and entertainment, an ingenious boxing match.

And then that ending—that last five minutes, at the clip at the link. It probably requires some explanation if you don't know it, but it's not hard to figure out. Better yet, just see the whole thing, why don't you. The run-time is less than 90 minutes, not the shortest movie on our lists but certainly one of them. No movie anywhere has a more beautiful ending. At a stroke it opens up the scope wide for everything that movies can do: the reality of human kindness and pathos, cynicism disarmed, and the simple and persuasive case, I say again, for optimism and hope.

It's all there all at once. When we read the flower girl's lips saying, "Yes, I can see now" (no need for the bigfooting card, but it's there), she's obviously talking about more than her restored eyesight. For me, it's the essence of movie magic—image and sound and narrative and performance colliding in an indelible moment. And I've also watched those glazed faces change remarkably when the sequence arrives, which is gratifying. At that moment, City Lights is the finest Christmas movie that ever existed. It's the best movie that ever existed.

Thanks everybody for indulging me in all this. Down to you, Phil. One more, you can do it—keep a-goin'!

"Yes, I can see now."

Phil #1: Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975) (scroll down)
Steven #1: The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972, 1974)

And so we finished the countdown, as Phil took it home with Nashville—which surprised me for its high ranking more than its appearance on his list—complemented by the six-odd hours of the first two Godfather movies of Steven's pick. Overall a very interesting mix-'em-up of titles, directors, genres, taste, both to participate in and to watch unfolding as well. Steven's blog and Phil's website both have tons more of great stuff and I recommend regular visits. Thanks again to Phil, Steven, and all readers for your indulgences.

And now, as promised, the current state of my top 50 as of January 2013, with 50 more beyond that, plus a Sight & Sound ballot on top...

Sight & Sound ballot
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
Scenes From a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)
Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1975)
The Up Series (Michael Apted, 1964-present)

Top 50 + 50
1. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
2. Scenes From a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
3. The Up Series (Michael Apted, 1964-present)
4. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
5. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1975)
6. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
7. Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)
8. Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
9. Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
10. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
11. The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973)
12. Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)
13. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
14. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
15. Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
16. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming/George Cukor/Mervyn LeRoy/Norman Taurog/King Vidor, 1939)
17. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
18. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
19. Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968)
20. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (Martin Scorsese, 2005)
21. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
22. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
23. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
24. Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936)
25. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
26. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
27. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
28. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)
29. The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959)
30. Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1983)
31. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
32. Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957)
33. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
34. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
35. Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972)
36. Fearless (Peter Weir, 1993)
37. Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang, 1945)
38. Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998)
39. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
40. Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932)
41. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
42. La Strada (Federico Fellini, 1954)
43. Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1980)
44. Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)
45. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
46. Gates of Heaven (Errol Morris, 1978)
47. Dogfight (Nancy Savoca, 1991)
48. Short Cuts (Robert Altman, 1993)
49. The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
50. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
51. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
52. In the Mood for Love (Kar Wai Wong, 2000)
53. Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986)
54. Don't Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker, 1967)
55. Once (John Carney, 2006)
56. Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
57. To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch,1942)
58. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
59. Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)
60. Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)
61. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
62. The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941)
63. The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001)
64. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007)
65. You Can Count on Me (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000)
66. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
67. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)
68. Goodfellas (Martin Scorses, 1990)
69. Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)
70. Streetwise (Martin Bell, 1984)
71. The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956)
72. Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)
73. Harlan County U.S.A. (Barbara Kopple, 1976)
74. Drugstore Cowboy (Gus Van Sant, 1989)
75. King Kong (Merian C. Cooper/Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933)
76. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
77. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)
78. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
79. Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
80. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
81. Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly, 1952)
82. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
83. Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
84. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
85. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992)
86. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
87. Gimme Shelter (Albert Maysles/David Maysles/Charlotte Zwerin, 1970)
88. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
89. High Art (Lisa Cholodenko, 1998)
90. The Player (Robert Altman, 1992)
91. Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)
92. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
93. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
94. The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg, 1930)
95. Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1976)
96. Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
97. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, 2006)
98. Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme, 1984)
99. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
100. Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983)