best film:  Two polar opposite films dominate both this category for Ralph Fiennes – and the best performance category below. On one hand, Fiennes plays Amon Goeth, commandant of the Kraków concentration camp in

  best film:  Twenty-one (20) of Chishû Ryû’s twenty-five (25) archiveable films are with Yasujirō Ozu so plainly, one has to start with Ozu - and when starting with Ozu, one starts with Tokyo Story.

  best film:  Malcolm X (1992) from Spike Lee is a masterpiece. It is different than David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) in some ways (lush 70mm exteriors for Lean’s film, how much of the

  best film:  Gone with the Wind is a masterpiece of epic moviemaking. Whether it is the gorgeous technicolor photography, the striking crane shots (in combination with a myriad of extras to provide proper scope),

  best film:  Ethan Hawke has the full Richard Linklater ‘Before’ trilogy to draw upon here. Boyhood (2014), also from Linklater,  has to be mentioned -  as does First Reformed (2017) from Paul Schrader. Hawke

  best film:  Edward Norton has been in fifteen (15) archiveable films and 6 (six) of them have been at the masterpiece or must-see level. Now that number is a little inflated with the three

  best film:  Whether he is front and center (Ikiru, Seven Samurai) or somewhere in the background as part of the ensemble cast (Rashomon, The Bad Sleep Well, High and Low) – the story of

  best film:  The Grand Illusion from Jean Renoir though Max Ophüls' Le Plaisir gives it a close chase. Renoir’s 1937 masterpiece features a staggering narrative, three (3) strong performances (Pierre Fresnay. Erich von Stroheim,

  best film:  The seven (7) Wes Anderson collaborations for Bill Murray have made this a very cluttered category – but at the very tip top – it is either Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation

  best film:  Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) has a comfortable lead over noir mainstay Out of the Past (1947). Kirk Douglas has plenty to chew on in both films. Paths of Glory is

  best film:  It is all about 1999 here with twin titan masterpieces from Paul Thomas Anderson and Stanley Kubrick. Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut are by far Tom Cruise’s best films even if there

  best film:  The Conformist is a visual high wire act from Bernardo Bertolucci. It is easily Bertolucci’s most formidable effort (and that is saying something because 1900 and Last Tango in Paris are excellent