Wild Horses of Fire!

Reading through Sight & Sound’s latest decennial ‘greatest films’ list made me want to bash out one of my own. Obviously – as is repeatedly pointed out in the magazine – list-making is almost entirely a nonsense, so I can’t really pretend these are anything other than a cross-section of my favourite films – and a somewhat arbitrary one at that. But (in no particular order):

Marketa Lazarová (František Vláčil, 1967)

The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)

Orlando (Sally Potter, 1992)

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943)

Three Colours Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993)

Before Night Falls (Julian Schnabel, 2000)

O Lucky Man! (Lindsay Anderson, 1973)

Beau travail (Claire Denis, 1999)

Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Paradjanov, 1964)

Onibaba (Kaneto Shindo, 1964)