best film:   Isuzu Yamada is a bigger part of Throne of Blood - but Yojimbo is the better film. Kurosawa’s 1961 film is yet another Kurosawa masterpiece from an artistically fertile period from the great master that started in the 1950s and extended into the early 1960s. One could easily write 1000 words on the cultural impact and cinematic influence of Yojimbo. Certainly - without Yojimbo - there would not be A Fistful of Dollars which was the breakthrough film for both Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood (two of the best 100 directors of all-time and one top 25

  best film:   The problem here for Jane Fonda is not Klute, which is an excellent film and Jane's best. The problem is the lack of competition for Klute regarding this category. There is not a really good option for that runner-up or second-best film. This category is a weakness for Jane- no doubt about that. Klute is Alan Pakula’s first film in the paranoia trilogy- an important piece of the New Hollywood 1970s American cinema.     Fonda as Bree Daniels cloaked in Gordon Willis' darkness in Alan Pakula's Klute     best performance:  Jane Fonda

  best film:   Sigourney Weaver was just a few years away from becoming a star in Alien (1979) when she made her film debut in 1977 as one of Woody Allen’s dates in the masterpiece Annie Hall. Weaver is barely in Annie Hall of course though, so the best real answer to the question of Weaver’s best film is Ridley Scott’s Alien. Scott’s film, the first one, is the best film in the series Weaver is most associated with. Both of James Cameron’s films featuring Weaver (1986’s Aliens, and 2009’s Avatar) deserve special consideration here as well.    

  best film:   The Big Sleep is right there near the top as one of the best film noir entries, but Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind is a virtual deadlock tie. The Big Sleep was slightly higher on the last top 500 films of all-time update so that will live here for now, it may flip with the next update.     Bacall had some trouble finding her footing after her four collaborations with Bogart in the 1940s (and these were four of her five first films- and all before the age of 25), but one surefire

  best film:   Pulp Fiction is a seminal film in the one hundred plus year history of narrative cinema and a fine choice to have as the best film for any actor. Uma’s other collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill, is also a masterpiece (though not on the level of Pulp Fiction) so clearly a candidate for this category.  Pulp Fiction is a three-pronged masterpiece— magnificent writing (on par with or superior to the great works of say Ingmar Bergman, Billy Wilder or say the works of Charlie Kaufman), tour de force direction behind the camera (the dance contest sequence,

  best film:   The Favourite from Yorgos Lanthimos takes the top slot here for Rachel Weisz.  No cinephile should be surprised to read afterwards that Cries and Whispers (a visually bold, vicious tale involving three women from Ingmar Bergman) and The Draughtsman’s Contract (Peter Greenaway- acidic, absurdist, black comedy) were important texts to Lanthimos. The Favourite is masterpiece of auteur driven formal and aesthetic choices (wide angle lens, natural lighting, slow motion photography, tracking shots down the corridor) featuring 2018’s best acting (Weisz part of the three-headed monster in the lead with Emma Stone and Olivia Colman) and equally remarkable writing. Darren Aronofsky’s

  best film:   My Fair Lady and it is not terribly close with her second best film (which could be Funny Face or Charade). Audrey often outperformed the films she was in (Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany’s) but My Fair Lady is a glowing exception. It is so handsomely mounted on a large canvas (65mm- and stunning) by George Cukor and of course Rex Harrison is perfection in the co-lead role. Hepburn does not sing here (and Harrison does) but she is near his equal overall in the film and this is a major feather in her cap.  

  best film:   Before Sunset is the peak of Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy even if it is not by a wide margin- all three of these films (and one can only hope for at least one more as the three principals are alive and working) are remarkable. The other prime candidates here for this category are Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers and Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours: White.     best performance:  Before Sunset. Much of the same here as the above category as the three films in Linklater’s trilogy with Julie Delpy starring opposite Ethan Hawke are the gold, silver

  best film:   There are two potential answers here. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) from Bela Tarr is the answer in the strictest sense. Hanna Schygulla plays Tünde Eszter and she is fantastic in her limited screen time opposite Lars Rudolph. If one was to consider only the films where Schygulla contributes a larger amount to the greater result of the film,  it would be 1979’s The Marriage of Maria Braun here as the answer.  This is the first film in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s BRD trilogy, which is really the great German auteur’s most artistically fertile stretch.   Hanna Schygulla

  best film:   Melancholia from enfant terrible Lars von Trier takes the top prize over Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides take third and fourth place in the category respectively. Dunst gives the best performance in three of these top four films. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, she is part of the talented ensemble (including Mark Ruffalo and the perfectly creepy Elijah Wood) backing up leads Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet.  Melancholia is a massive masterpiece.  There may not be a better opening eight minutes in cinema history than

  best film:   Alida Valli worked with some of the Italian greatest auteurs of their generation (more below in the directors worked with section) but it is the British film with a British director (Carol Reed) and British writer (Graham Greene)  The Third Man that prevails as her single best film. Dario Argento’s Suspiria is not far behind- both are towering masterpieces. For The Third Man, Valli shares credit in front of the camera  with both of the two Mercury theater buddies: Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. Cotten plays the lead, and Welles gets one of the most memorable

  best film:   Emma Stone had a dominant 2010s decade. She is a key part of three (3) of top sixteen (16) films on the most recent top 100 of the 2010s decade list. So, although La La Land is the answer here, Birdman and The Favourite are not far behind. This category is an undeniable strength for Stone’s case on this list- most actors hope to be an integral part of one, or maybe two masterpieces over a long career.     Stone's audition scene in La La Land is the arrival of Emma Stone (actually it is