Top Ten Work In Progress

There's an Australian internet magazine called "Senses Of Cinema" that invites readers to submit their top tens. I've been working on mine but it's not set in stone. Here's where I am so far:

1) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles) There can be no question.

2) The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola) The greatest tribute to Italian-Americans and crime films of the thirties ever made.

3) Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (Steven Spielberg) Innocence and awe in its purest form.

4) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick) Kubrick may have had the right answers but he also asked all the right questions.

5) Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder) Jack Lemmon: "I'm a girl, I'm a girl, I'm a girl..."

6) Pinocchio (Hamilton Luske and Ben Sharpsteen) I'm actually amazed I don't rate this the greatest film of all time. Every emotion a child experiences is embodied in this film. It's also so terrifying I have to steel myself to watch it.

7) GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese) Perhaps the funniest commentary on the search for the American dream ever made.

8) It's A Wonderful Life. (Frank Capra) Indeed it is, yes indeedy.

9) The Conversation. (Francis Ford Coppola) Some of the cleverest sound and mind tricks ever played on an audience.

10) Cast Away. (Robert Zemeckis) Zemeckis may not have had all the right answers but at least he asked the right questions.

Honorable mentions (these films may in fact replace some of the ones in the top ten by the time I'm ready to submit): The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell); Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock); Taste Of Cherry (Abbas Kiorastami); The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurasawa); Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarentino); The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola); Blue Velvet (David Lynch); The General (Buster Keaton); The Night Of The Hunter (Charles Laughton); Sorcerer (William Friedkin); The Apartment (Billy Wilder); Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock); Days Of Heaven (Terence Malick).

Oh and "Senses Of Cinema" is an excellent journal.