best film:  The Conformist from Bernardo Bertolucci. The Conformist is a visual showcase of set pieces, lighting, and overall mise-en-scene. It features unending sequences of jaw-dropping architectural design. It is a feat of costume design

best film:  The Wild Bunch from Sam Peckinpah doggedly nihilistic, crisply photographed (Lucien Ballard as DP) and flawlessly performed by the talented ensemble of veteran actors The transcendent trait though, and what makes it

best film:  2001: A Space Odyssey from Stanley Kubrick. A supreme visual and aural achievement—when combined with the utmost formal exactitude— it leaves us with one of the best three films of all-time If you

best film:  The Graduate from Mike Nichols is the sole 1967 film on my top 100 of all-time. I’m often asked if I have a bias against comedies (I’m lower on Chaplin, Wilder, Duck Soup

best film:  Persona. Persona is Bergman’s most avant-garde film. It is also his finest. It is cinematographer Sven Nykvist’s best work as well (that may be redundant- his best work was all with Bergman). The

best film:  Pierrot le Fou from Godard. Godard’s most innovative work to date in 1965 and the one most likely to give pause when selecting Breathless as his single finest film. It is self-conscious, self-mocking

best film:  I Am Cuba or Soy Cuba from Mikhail Kalatozov.  It took me a long time to get to Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba. I didn’t get to it until 2016 and when I did,

best film:  Fellini’s 8 ½ stands above the rest in 1963 but it isn’t by a wide margin. Kurosawa’s High and Low is right there as is The Leopard from Visconti. Kurosawa’s use of the

best film: Lawrence of Arabia from David Lean The most epic of epics. Lean’s ability to capture the breathtaking locations with 65mm/70mm photography is simply unmatched in cinema history. Like Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia starts with

best film: You couldn’t go wrong choosing either Last Year at Marienbad from Resnais or Ozu’s The End of Summer. A convincing case could be made for Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad to be called

best film:  La Dolce Vita from Fellini. La Dolce Vita is Fellini’s sprawling tour of the seven deadly sins (and sacraments and creation days) through Marcello Mastroianni and modern Rome. And in Rome—Fellini crafts some

best film:  Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows is the dawning of a new era --The French New Wave-- and it marks the arrival of a wunderkind (his debut, Truffaut was 27) in cinema. The shockwaves